Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Clair de Lune

by Guy de Maupassant
(1850-1893)
Translators: Albert M.C. McMaster, A.E. Henderson, Mme. Quesada, & others.

Abbe Marignan's martial name suited him well. He was a tall, thin priest, fanatic, excitable, yet upright. All his beliefs were fixed, never varying. He believed sincerely that he knew his God, understood His plans, desires, and intentions. When he walked with long strides along the garden walk of his little country parsonage, he would sometimes ask himself the question: "Why has God done this?" And he would dwell on this continually, putting himself in the place of God, and he almost invariably found an answer. He would never have cried out in an outburst of pious humility: "Thy ways, O Lord, are past finding out."
He said to himself: "I am the servant of God; it is right for me to know the reason of His deeds, or to guess it if I do not know it."



Everything in nature seemed to him to have been created in accordance with an admirable and absolute logic. The "whys" and "because" always balanced. Dawn was given to make our awakening pleasant, the days to ripen the harvest, the rains to moisten it, the evenings for preparation for slumber, and the dark nights for sleep.
The four seasons corresponded perfectly to the needs of agriculture, and no suspicion had ever come to the priest of the fact that nature has no intentions; that, on the contrary, everything which exists must conform to the hard demands of seasons, climates and matter.
But he hated woman--hated her unconsciously, and despised her by instinct. He often repeated the words of Christ: "Woman, what have I to do with thee?" and he would add: "It seems as though God, Himself, were dissatisfied with this work of His." She was the tempter who led the first man astray, and who since then had ever been busy with her work of damnation, the feeble creature, dangerous and mysteriously affecting one. And even more than their sinful bodies, he hated their loving hearts.
He had often felt their tenderness directed toward himself, and though he knew that he was invulnerable, he grew angry at this need of love that is always vibrating in them.
According to his belief, God had created a woman for the sole purpose of tempting and testing man. One must not approach her without defensive precautions and fear of possible snares. She was, indeed, just like a snare, with her lips open and her arms stretched out to man.
He had no indulgence except for nuns, whom their vows had rendered inoffensive; but he was stern with them, nevertheless, because he felt that at the bottom of their fettered and humble hearts the everlasting tenderness was burning brightly--that tenderness which was shown even to him, a priest.
He felt this cursed tenderness, even in their docility, in the low tones of their voices when speaking to him, in their lowered eyes, and in their resigned tears when he reproved them roughly. And he would shake his cassock on leaving the convent doors, and walk off, lengthening his stride as though flying from danger.
He had a niece who lived with her mother in a little house near him. He was bent upon making a sister of charity of her.
She was a pretty, brainless madcap. When the abbe preached she laughed, and when he was angry with her she would give him a hug, drawing him to her heart, while he sought unconsciously to release himself from this embrace which nevertheless filled him with a sweet pleasure, awakening in his depths the sensation of paternity which slumbers in every man.
Often, when walking by her side, along the country road, he would speak to her of God, of his God. She never listened to him but looked about her at the sky, the grass and flowers, and one could see the joy of life sparkling in her eyes. Sometimes she would dart forward to catch some flying creature, crying out as she brought it back: "Look, uncle, how pretty it is! I want to hug it!" And this desire to "hug" flies or lilac blossoms disquieted, angered, and roused the priest, who saw, even in this, the ineradicable tenderness that is always budding in women's hearts.
Then there came a day when the sexton's wife, who kept house for Abbe Marignan, told him, with caution, that his niece had a lover.
Almost suffocated by the fearful emotion this news roused in him, he stood there, his face covered with soap, for he was in the act of shaving.
When he had sufficiently recovered to think and speak he cried: "It is not true; you lie, Melanie!"
But the peasant woman put her hand on her heart, saying: "May our Lord judge me if I lie, Monsieur le Cure! I tell you, she goes there every night when your sister has gone to bed. They meet by the riverside; you have only to go there and see, between ten o'clock and midnight."
He ceased scraping his chin and began to walk up and down impetuously, as he always did when he was in deep thought. When he began shaving again he cut himself three times from his nose to his ear.
All-day long he was silent, full of anger and indignation. To his priestly hatred of this invincible love was added the exasperation of her spiritual father, of her guardian and pastor, deceived and tricked by a child, and the selfish emotion shown by parents when their daughter announces that she has chosen a husband without them and in spite of them.
After dinner, he tried to read a little, but could not, growing more and, more angry. When ten o'clock struck he seized his cane, a formidable oak stick, which he was accustomed to carrying in his nocturnal walks when visiting the sick. And he smiled at the enormous club which he twirled in a threatening manner in his strong, country fist. Then he raised it suddenly and, gritting his teeth, brought it down on a chair, the broken back of which fell over on the floor.
He opened the door to go out, but stopped on the sill, surprised by the splendid moonlight, of such brilliance as is seldom seen.
And, as he was gifted with an emotional nature, one such as had all those poetic dreamers, the Fathers of the Church, he felt suddenly distracted and moved by all the grand and serene beauty of this pale night.
In his little garden, all bathed in soft light, his fruit trees in a row cast on the ground the shadow of their slender branches, scarcely in full leaf, while the giant honeysuckle, clinging to the wall of his house, exhaled a delicious sweetness, filling the warm moonlit atmosphere with a kind of perfumed soul.
He began to take long breaths, drinking in the air as drunkards drink wine, and he walked along slowly, delighted, marveling, almost forgetting his niece.
As soon as he was outside of the garden, he stopped to gaze upon the plain all flooded with the caressing light, bathed in that tender, languishing charm of serene nights. At each moment was heard the short, metallic note of the cricket, and distant nightingales shook out their scattered notes--their light, vibrant music that sets one dreaming, without thinking, a music made for kisses, for the seduction of moonlight.
The abbe walked on again, his heart failing, though he knew not why. He seemed weakened, suddenly exhausted; he wanted to sit down, to rest there, to think, to admire God in His works.
Down yonder, following the undulations of the little river, a great line of poplars wound in and out. A fine mist, a white haze through which the moonbeams passed, silvering it and making it gleam, hung around and above the mountains, covering all the tortuous course of the water with a kind of light and transparent cotton.
The priest stopped once again, his soul filled with a growing and irresistible tenderness.
And a doubt, a vague feeling of disquiet came over him; he was asking one of those questions that he sometimes put to himself.
"Why did God make this? Since the night is destined for sleep, unconsciousness, repose, forgetfulness of everything, why make it more charming than a day, softer than dawn or evening? And does why this seductive planet, more poetic than the sun, that seems destined, so discreet is it, to illuminate things too delicate and mysterious for the light of day, make the darkness so transparent?
"Why does not the greatest of feathered songsters sleep like the others? Why does it pour forth its voice in the mysterious night?
"Why this half-veil cast over the world? Why these tremblings of the heart, this emotion of the spirit, this enervation of the body? Why this display of enchantments that human beings do not see since they are lying in their beds? For whom is destined this sublime spectacle, this abundance of poetry cast from heaven to earth?"
And the abbe could not understand.
But see, out there, on the edge of the meadow, under the arch of trees bathed in a shining mist, two figures are walking side by side.
The man was the taller, and held his arm about his sweetheart's neck and kissed her brow every little while. They imparted life, all at once, to the placid landscape in which they were framed as by a heavenly hand. The two seemed but a single being, the being for whom was destined this calm and silent night, and they came toward the priest as a living answer, the response his Master sent to his questionings.
He stood still, his heart beating, all upset; and it seemed to him that he saw before him some biblical scene, like the loves of Ruth and Boaz, the accomplishment of the will of the Lord, in some of those glorious stories of which the sacred books tell. The verses of the Song of Songs began to ring in his ears, the appeal of passion, all the poetry of this poem replete with tenderness.    the fragrant of cemetery flowers traced back to the French frontline ...



http://www.online-literature.com/maupassant/199/

And he said unto himself: "Perhaps God has made such nights as these to idealize the love of men."
He shrank back from this couple that still advanced with arms intertwined. Yet it was his niece. But he asked himself now if he would not be disobeying God. And does not God permit love, since He surrounds it with such visible splendor?
And he went back musing, almost ashamed, as if he had intruded into a temple where he had, no right to enter.

Monday, January 14, 2013



."The idea that I had of my morality arose from the fact that in my family there was no knowledge of those special debaucheries, so common in the surroundings of land-owners, and also from the fact that my father and my mother did not deceive each other. In consequence of this, I had built from childhood a dream of high and poetical conjugal life. My wife was to be perfection itself, our mutual love was to be incomparable, the purity of our conjugal life stainless. I thought thus, and all the time I marvelled at the nobility of my projects. "At the same time, I passed ten years of my adult life without hurrying toward marriage, and I led what I called the well-regulated and reasonable life of a bachelor. I was proud of it before my friends, and before all men of my age who abandoned themselves to all sorts of special refinements. I was not a seducer, I had no unnatural tastes, I did not make debauchery the principal object of my life; but I found pleasure within the limits of society's rules, and innocently believed myself a profoundly moral being. The women with whom I had relations did not belong to me alone, and I asked of them nothing but the pleasure of the moment. "In all this I saw nothing abnormal. On the contrary, from the fact that I did not engage my heart, but paid in cash, I supposed that I was honest. I avoided those women who, by attaching themselves to me, or presenting me with a child, could bind my future. Moreover, perhaps there may have been children or attachments; but I so arranged matters that I could not become aware of them. "And living thus, I considered myself a perfectly honest man. I did not understand that debauchery does not consist simply in physical acts, that no matter what physical ignominy does not yet constitute debauchery, and that real debauchery consists in freedom from the moral bonds toward a woman with whom one enters into carnal relations, and I regarded THIS FREEDOM as a merit. I remember that I once tortured myself exceedingly for having forgotten to pay a woman who probably had given herself to me through love. I only became tranquil again when, having sent her the money, I had thus shown her that I did not consider myself as in any way bound to her. Oh, do not shake your head as if you were in agreement with me (he cried suddenly with vehemence). I know these tricks. All of you, and you especially, if you are not a rare exception, have the same ideas that I had then. If you are in agreement with me, it is now only. Formerly you did not think so. No more did I; and, if I had been told what I have just told you, that which has happened would not have happened. However, it is all the same. Excuse me (he continued): the truth is that it is frightful, frightful, frightful, this abyss of errors and debaucheries in which we live face to face with the real question of the rights of woman." . . . "What do you mean by the 'real' question of the rights of woman?" "The question of the nature of this special being, organized otherwise than man, and how this being and man ought to view the wife. . . ." Literature Network by...

» Leo Tolstoy »
The Kreutzer Sonata » Chapter 4 Her intrigued mind as time overlapped by doomsday time itself, she wore thin makeup natural look with little white jasmine dyed all over her sheared blouse with only dark blue ribbon belt wrap around her its shown while she walking on her hips a pencil skirt.. and the matching  sheer nylon to play herself underneath with the heels slip on and get high, all of these were called nirvana when you get turn on seductively like if you were me and that appearance in front of you suggested my appetite warn of touching by reaching out. My chamois boots walked me away from the reality from the table where the deck had played whole in one where no eyes ever discover such experiences in really was a phenomenon such things gave me a bit by bit sieve through my bones of crooked spine give me  experiencing  hallucination in the room full of people in another state of mind I was indeed panic to have said that I have fallen in love to such a beautiful image of paradise’s creature, I would like to pass a seduction  between a fair bien la femme who sat there between her boy
(1850-1893)
        She sat beside her piano starred aimlessly at the whiteness of ceiling, I have indeed come to Piano room found myself fallen in the darkness, hole of attraction and continuously felt that somehow deep inside her intuition she know who wrote the song well. I am hearing what is called "Etude" and with the help of angel who carried a load of fantasy of course she's the same idea wanted to be close to God. Like the magnitude of circled theory there was thunder rainstorm outside music sheet  and the left hand bass clef has begun with g flat a very difficult note of situation my thought were sucked in by this uncontrollable thought Oh ! where do I begin? with the theory of being circled , never before in my life of a bridge over trouble water have never been interested la femme, such a fanatic force of error a very cognizant’s step closer towards the space of my heart which no longer yield the emptiness of vigilante never. Again she turned it upside down the high heel slip on charmois boots while holding the key to the zero latitude of her  intreiqued mind. Words linage here in before from my own point of view not yet have been equaled the mind of fuss she was measured on what have determined in term of etude’  An étude (/ ˈeɪtjuːd /; French pronunciation: [eˈtyd], a French word meaning study) is an instrumental musical composition, usually short and of considerable difficulty, usually designed to provide practice material for perfecting a particular musical skill
The new year party was over and she had disappear left only the shadow of her smile, next silently I was questioned my self of what is going on around here in my bedroom on the adjoining vertex of hard disk's tablet ,





 Well, everything looks consistent to me. My mental state. Set on bettering mine's and sit together. It works. Previously, it did not work for you, ten times. But now it has been the way of the trap. I was a very serious day. Wedding themes are held up as a trap. It is the only reason. Do you think it should be asked in the past. Women should be offered the parties or otherwise. To be honest, I do not know about this. I know that if we have equality. Said the girl on the Internet and will be married to someone.here to persuade of happiness I who initialize disk, as it written "As time will function the world by itself ". Étude Op. 10, No. 5, in G-flat major, is a study for solo piano composed by Frédéric Chopin in 1830. It was first published in 1833 in France,[1] Germany,[2] and England[3] as the fifth piece of his Études Op. 10. This work is characterized by the rapid triplet figuration played by the right hand exclusively on black keys. This brilliant melodic figuration is accompanied by the left hand in staccato chords and octaves.
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[edit] Significance
The so-called "Black Key Étude" is one of the most popular.[4] It has been a repertoire piece of pianists since Chopin’s time and has inspired numerous exercises, arrangements and paraphrases. Chopin himself did not believe the study to be his most interesting one. In a letter to his pianist friend and musical executor Julian Fontana he comments on Clara Wieck’s’s performance:
"Did Wieck play my Etude well? How could she have chosen precisely this Etude, the least interesting for those who do not know that it is intended for the black keys, instead of something better! It would have been better to remain silent."[5]
Von Bülow (1830 - 1894) speaks rather disdainfully of Op. 10, No. 5 as a "Damen-Salon Etüde" ("Ladies Salon Etude").[6]
[edit] Structure and stylistic traits
Like all of Chopin’s other études, this work is in ternary form A-B-A. The two eight-bar periods of the A section are characterized by frequent dynamic contrasts. Each reentry of the first bar, occurring every four bars, is marked by a forte, followed in the second bar by a piano restatement in a lower register. This capricious[7] opening in the tonic is replied by an upward movement and a syncopated accompaniment in the third and fourth bar. This pattern is repeated four times. The harmonic scheme of the A section is relatively simple, featuring tonic (first two bars) versus dominant (third and fourth bars), but the consequent of the first period shifts to B-flat major (poco rallentando, pp), while the consequent of the second one modulates to the dominant key D-flat major.
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