Urien’s Voyage

  we never left the confines

  of the chamber of our thoughts,—

  and we passed through life

  without ever seeing it. We read.

  You would come in the morning

  exhausted from your prayers.

  Madame, I deceived you:

  This whole book is but a lie.

  But I did not shout,

  for a dreamer is calm.

  One day, however, as you know,

  I wanted to look at life;

  we studied the world about us.

  But I found the things of this world

  so serious, so terrible,

  so responsible on all sides,

  that I dared not speak the truth;

  I turned away—oh! Madame—forgive me;

  I preferred to tell a lie.

  I was afraid of shouting too loudly

  and destroying poetry

  if I had told the Truth,

  the Truth that must be heard;

  I preferred still to lie

  and to wait,—wait, wait …*

  La Roque, Summer, 1892.

  * In another place (Journal, 1930) Gide stated, “I write only for those who can read between the lines.” The turning away may refer to a crucial episode in the life of the author—his discovery that Madeleine, far from being serene and unapproachable, was apprehensive and in need of his protection; Madeleine, after discovering that her mother had a lover, suffered in silence. Gide took it upon himself to guide her, and have her share his interests in nature, literature and philosophy.

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  copyright © 1964 by the Philosophical Library, Inc.

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