Not all messages are displayed:
show all messages (39 of them)
CB picks up his memoirs again, at a point this selection collects as 'Manhood'.
Yesterday evening I was walking by myself; the sky was like an autumn sky; a cold wind blew at intervals. Coming to a gap in the thicket, I stopped to look at the sun; it was sinking into the clouds above the tower of Alluye, from which Gabrielle [Gabrielle d'Estrées, Henri IV's mistress], occupying that tower, had seen the sun set, as I was seeing it now, two hundred years ago. What has become of Henri and Gabrielle? The same that will have become of me when these Memoirs are published.I was distracted from these reflections by the twittering of a thrush perched on the topmost branch of a birch tree. At once that magnificent sound brought back before my eyes my father's domain; I forgot the disasters which I had recently witnessed and, carried back all of a sudden into the past, I saw once more the fields where I had so often heard the thrush's song. When I listened to it then, I was sad as I am today; but that first sadness was of the kind which springs from vague longing for happiness when one is still lacking in experience; the sadness which I feel now comes from the knowledge of things which I have appreciated and judged. The song of the bird in the Combourg woods told me of a happiness which I expected to achieve; the same song in the park at Montboissier reminded me of the days I had wasted in the pursuit of that unattainable happiness. I have nothing more to learn; I have travelled faster than others, and I have completed the tour of life.
CB posting to the 'this is the inevitable thread for ilxors in their forties' thread there.
Also a *very good* intro to the Manhood section as it is *full* of hilarious teen morbidity and sexual embarrassment, which he sees as *unique* in the *history humankind*, no one other than i has experienced such things etc.
Returning to my former state of idleness, I became more aware of what was lacking in my youth: I was a mystery to myself. I could not see a woman without feeling embarrassed; I blushed if she spoke to me. My shyness, already excessive in anybody's company, was so great with a woman that I would have preferred any torture to being left alone with her: yet no sooner had she gone than I longed for her to return. The descriptions of Virgil, Tibullus and Massillon, it is true, presented themselves to my memory; but the image of my mother and my sister, covering everything with its purity, made thicker the veils which Nature sought to raise; filial and brotherly love decried me with regard to any less disinterested affection. If the loveliest slaves of a seraglio had been handed over to me, I would not have known what to ask of them: chance enlightened me.A neighbour of the Combourg domain came to spend a few days at the château with his wife, who was extremely pretty. Something, I forget exactly what, happened in the village; everyone ran to one of the windows of the great hall to look. I got there first, our fair guest followed hard on my heels, and I turned round to give her my place. Involuntarily she blocked my way, and I found myself pressed between her and the window. I ceased to be conscious of what was happening around me.
At that moment I became aware that to love and be loved in a manner which was unknown to me must be the supreme happiness. If I had done what other men do, I should soon have come to know the pains and pleasures of the passion whose seeds I carried within me; but everything in me assumed an extraordinary character. The fervour of my imagination, my shyness and solitude were such that, instead of going out into society, I fell back upon myself; for want of a real object of my love, I evoked, by the strength of my vague longings, a phantom which never left my side. I do not know whether the history of the human heart offers another example of this nature.
1) I've got a slightly different idea of what was lacking in his youth - he lived in the middle of nowhere, only ever seeing his close family, fancied his sister, was a teenager and wasn't getting any.
2) that scene at the window is hilarious, and obv the woman knew very well what she was doing
3) it's a characteristic of these memoirs that he frequently expresses the belief that he is the only person who could possibly had such an experience, either because of his great abilities and refinement, or the accident of time and place. Earlier he has stated that he is one of the only people who is able to testify to both feudal France and
BUT
to be fair to the lad, this sort of Romantic expression *was* new - it's the eve of the French Revolution. It's one of those things where it's hard to believe the experience of coming out the other side of puberty hasn't ever involved this sort of turmoil, or that manners in society often frustrated the natural sexual urges, leading to a great deal of frustration. but it's certainly also likely that this *mode* of expression, of the agonies of the self, was novel, may have seemed unique, where to us it now feels natural, perhaps even cliched. CB is perhaps a sort of pioneer in these spaces.
What's impressive is the extent to which the mature CB, the memoirist, is able to very clearly feel his teenage pangs. But it's also a bit perplexing that despite his long experience of life and people he still perceives the uniqueness of the experience (it's easy in our youth, less easy as we perhaps look back cynically on ourselves, to do so in age.
― Fizzles, Tuesday, 2 January 2018 14:24 (six years ago) link