About: Three short works by Gustave Flaubert
THREE SHORT WORKS
Produced by Juliet Sutherland and the Online Distributed ProofreadingTeam.
THREE SHORT WORKS
by
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
The Dance of DeathThe Legend of Saint Julian the HospitallerA Simple Soul
THE DANCE OF DEATH
_(1838)_
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"Many words for few things!""Death ends all; judgment comes to all."
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[This work may be called a prose poem. It is impregnated with thespirit of romanticism, which at the time of writing had atemporary but powerful hold on the mind of Gustave Flaubert.]
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DEATH SPEAKS
At night, in winter, when the snow flakes fall slowly from heavenlike great white tears, I raise my voice; its resonance thrillsthe cypress trees and makes them bud anew.
I pause an instant in my swift course over earth; throw myselfdown among cold tombs; and, while dark plumaged birds risesuddenly in terror from my side, while the dead slumberpeacefully, while cypress branches droop low o'er my head, whileall around me weeps or lies in deep repose, my burning eyes reston the great white clouds, gigantic winding sheets, unrollingtheir slow length across the face of heaven.
How many nights, and years, and ages have I journeyed thus! Awitness of the universal birth and of a like decay; Innumerableare the generations I have garnered with my scythe. Like God, I ameternal! The nurse of Earth, I cradle it each night upon a bedboth soft and warm. The same recurring feasts; the same unendingtoil! Each morning I depart, each evening I return, bearing withinmy mantle's ample folds all that my scythe has gathered. And thenI scatter them to the four winds of Heaven!
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When the high billows run, when the heavens weep, and shriekingwinds lash ocean into madness, then in the turmoil and the tumultdo I fling myself upon the surging waves, and lo! the tempestsoftly cradles me, as in her hammock sways a queen. The foamingwaters cool my weary feet, burning from bathing in the fallingtears of countless generations that have clung to them in vainendeavour to arrest my steps.
Then, when the storm has ceased, after its roar has calmed me likea lullaby, I bow my head: the hurricane, raging in fury but amoment earlier dies instantly. No longer does it live, but neitherdo the men, the ships, the navies that lately sailed upon thebosom of the waters.
'Mid all that I have seen and known, peoples and thrones, loves,glories, sorrows, virtues what have I ever loved? Nothing exceptthe mantling shroud that covers me!
My horse! ah, yes! my horse! I love thee too! How thou rushesto'er the world! thy hoofs of steel resounding on the heads bruisedby thy speeding feet. Thy tail is straight and crisp, thine eyesdart flames, the mane upon thy neck flies in the wind, as on wedash upon our maddened course. Never art thou weary! Never do werest! Never do we sleep! Thy neighing portends war; thy smokingnostrils spread a pestilence that, mist like, hovers over earth.Where'er my arrows fly, thou overturnest pyramids and empires,trampling crowns beneath thy hoofs; All men respect thee; nay,adore thee! To invoke thy favour, popes offer thee their triplecrowns, and kings their sceptres; peoples, their secret sorrows;poets, their renown. All cringe and kneel before thee, yet thourushest on over their prostrate forms.
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