Tuesday's Trust - A Grieving Father Writes...

Tuesday's Trust

A Grieving Father Writes...

Victor Hugo: I will see that instant until I die

[Written at Villequier, on the Seine, 4 September 1847, where his 19-year-old daughter was buried near where she drowned in the Seine, four years earlier]

Now that Paris, its cobblestones and marble,
and its mists and its roofs are quite far from my eyes;
now that I am under tree branches,
and can daydream of the beauty of the skies;

Now that I am coming out, pale but victorious,
from the mourning that made my soul dark,
and I feel the peace of great Nature
entering my heart;

Now that, seated at the edge of the waves,
moved by this superb and tranquil horizon,
I can examine deep truths inside me
and look at the flowers that are on the lawn;

Now, O God! that I have the somber calm
to be able from now on 
to look with my eyes on the stone where I know in the shadow
she is sleeping forever;

Now that, touched by these divine sights,
Plains, forests, rocks, little valleys, silvery river,
seeing my smallness and seeing your miracles,
I come back to my senses before their immensity;

I come to you, Lord, father who must be believed in;
peaceful now, I bring you
the pieces of that heart all full of your glory
that you broke;

I come to you, Lord! confessing that you are
good, merciful, indulgent and kind, O living God!
I admit that you alone know what you do.
And that man is nothing but a reed that quivers in the wind;

I say that the tomb that closes upon the dead
opens the heavens;
and that what we here below take for the end
is the beginning;

I acknowledge on my knees that you alone, awesome father,
own the infinite, the real, the absolute;
I acknowledge that it is good, that it is right
that my heart has bled, since God willed it!

I resist no more whatever happens to me
by your will.
The soul from grief to grief, Man from shore to shore,
rolls to eternity.

We never see but a single side of things;
the other plunges into the night of frightening mystery.
Man bears the yoke without knowing why.
All he sees is short, useless and fleeting.

You make loneliness return always
around all his footsteps.
You did not want him to have certainty
nor joy here below!

As soon as he owns something, fate takes it away.
Nothing is given to him, in his speedy days,
for him to make a home and say:
Here is my house, my field and my loved ones!

He must see for a short time all that his eyes see;
he grows old without support.
Since things are so, it’s because they must be so;
I admit it, I admit it!

The world is dark, O God! the unchanging harmony
is wrought of tears as well as of songs;
Man is but an atom in this infinite shadow,
night where the good rise, where the bad fall. 

I know you have far more to do
than to feel sorry for us all,
and that a child who dies, to its mother’s despair,
is nothing to you!

I know that fruit falls to the wind that shakes it,
that birds lose their feathers and flowers their fragrance,
that Creation is a great wheel
that cannot move without crushing someone;

months, days, billows of the sea, eyes that weep
pass under the blue sky;
grass must grow and children die;
I know it, O God!

In your heavens, above the sphere of the clouds,
deep in that still, sleeping blue,
perhaps you are making unknown things
where Man’s pain is an ingredient.

Perhaps it is useful in your numberless plans
that charming creatures
go away, carried off by the dark whirlwind
of black events.

Our shadowy destinies go underneath huge laws
which nothing disconcerts and nothing moves.
You cannot have sudden mercies
that would disturb the world, O God, calm spirit!

I beg you, O God! to look at my soul,
and to consider
that humbly as a child and gently as a woman,
I come to adore you!

Consider again how I have, since dawn,
worked, fought, thought, walked, struggled,
explaining Nature to Man who knew nothing of it,
lighting everything with your clarity;

that, facing hate and anger,
I have done my task here below,
that I could not expect this wage,
that I could not

foresee that you too, on my yielding head,
would let fall heavily your triumphant arm,
and that you who saw how little joy I have,
would take my child away so quickly!

How a soul thus struck is likely to wail,
how I could curse,
and cast my cries at you like a child
throwing stones in the sea!

Consider how one doubts, O God! when one suffers,
how the eye that weeps too much is blinded,
how a being plunged by grief into the blackest pit,
seeing you no more, cannot contemplate you.

And it cannot be that a Man, when he sinks
under affliction,
has in his wit the sober serenity
of the constellations!

Today, I who was weak as a mother,
I bend to your feet before your open skies.
I feel myself enlightened in my bitter sadness
by a better outlook on the universe.

Lord, I realize that Man is crazy
if he dares complain;
I’ve stopped accusing, I’ve stopped cursing,
but let me weep!

Alas! let the tears run down from my eyes,
since you have made Men for this!
Let me lean over this cold stone
and say to my child: Do you feel that I am here?

Let me speak to her, bent over her remains,
in the evening when all is still,
as if, reopening her celestial eyes in her night,
this angel could hear me!

Alas! turning an envious eye on the past,
while nothing here below can console me,
I keep seeing that moment in my life
when I saw her open her wings and fly off!

I will see that instant until I die,

the instant, no tears needed!
where I cried: the child I had a minute ago—
What? I don’t have her any more?

Do not be irritated that I am like this,
O my God! this wound bled for so long!
The anguish in my heart is still the strongest thing,
and my heart is submissive, but not resigned.

Do not be angry! Brows claimed by sorrow,
mortals subject to tears,
for us it is not easy to withdraw our souls
from these great griefs.

You see, we really need our children,
Lord; when one has seen in one’s life, some morning,
in the midst of cares, hardships, miseries,
and of the shadow our fate casts over us,

how a child appears, a dear sacred head,
a small joyful creature,
so beautiful one thinks a door to heaven has opened
when it arrives; 

when for sixteen years one has watched this other self
grow in loveable grace and sweet reason,
when one has realized that this child one loves
makes daylight in our soul and in our home,

that it is the only joy that remains here below
of all that one has dreamed of;
consider that it is a very sad thing
to watch it going away!

                                --Victor Hugo (1802-1885)

Poem found at

http://www.consolatio.com/2005/01/at_villequier.html

Wednesday's Woe - "I will see that instant until I die" ~Victor Hugo on the loss of his child

Wednesday's Woe

"I will see that instant until I die"

~Victor Hugo on the loss of his child

Victor Hugo: I will see that instant until I die

[Written at Villequier, on the Seine, 4 September 1847, where his 19-year-old daughter was buried near where she drowned in the Seine, four years earlier]

Now that Paris, its cobblestones and marble,
and its mists and its roofs are quite far from my eyes;
now that I am under tree branches,
and can daydream of the beauty of the skies;

Now that I am coming out, pale but victorious,
from the mourning that made my soul dark,
and I feel the peace of great Nature
entering my heart;

Now that, seated at the edge of the waves,

moved by this superb and tranquil horizon,
I can examine deep truths inside me
and look at the flowers that are on the lawn;

Now, O God! that I have the somber calm
to be able from now on
to look with my eyes on the stone where I know in the shadow
she is sleeping forever;

Now that, touched by these divine sights,
Plains, forests, rocks, little valleys, silvery river,
seeing my smallness and seeing your miracles,
I come back to my senses before their immensity;

I come to you, Lord, father who must be believed in;
peaceful now, I bring you
the pieces of that heart all full of your glory
that you broke;

I come to you, Lord! confessing that you are
good, merciful, indulgent and kind, O living God!
I admit that you alone know what you do.
And that man is nothing but a reed that quivers in the wind;

I say that the tomb that closes upon the dead
opens the heavens;
and that what we here below take for the end
is the beginning;

I acknowledge on my knees that you alone, awesome father,
own the infinite, the real, the absolute;
I acknowledge that it is good, that it is right
that my heart has bled, since God willed it!

I resist no more whatever happens to me
by your will.
The soul from grief to grief, Man from shore to shore,
rolls to eternity.

We never see but a single side of things;
the other plunges into the night of frightening mystery.
Man bears the yoke without knowing why.
All he sees is short, useless and fleeting.

You make loneliness return always
around all his footsteps.
You did not want him to have certainty
nor joy here below!

As soon as he owns something, fate takes it away.
Nothing is given to him, in his speedy days,
for him to make a home and say:
Here is my house, my field and my loved ones!

He must see for a short time all that his eyes see;
he grows old without support.
Since things are so, it’s because they must be so;
I admit it, I admit it!

The world is dark, O God! the unchanging harmony
is wrought of tears as well as of songs;
Man is but an atom in this infinite shadow,
night where the good rise, where the bad fall.

I know you have far more to do
than to feel sorry for us all,
and that a child who dies, to its mother’s despair,
is nothing to you!

I know that fruit falls to the wind that shakes it,
that birds lose their feathers and flowers their fragrance,
that Creation is a great wheel
that cannot move without crushing someone;

months, days, billows of the sea, eyes that weep
pass under the blue sky;
grass must grow and children die;
I know it, O God!

In your heavens, above the sphere of the clouds,
deep in that still, sleeping blue,
perhaps you are making unknown things
where Man’s pain is an ingredient.

Perhaps it is useful in your numberless plans
that charming creatures
go away, carried off by the dark whirlwind
of black events.

Our shadowy destinies go underneath huge laws
which nothing disconcerts and nothing moves.
You cannot have sudden mercies
that would disturb the world, O God, calm spirit!

I beg you, O God! to look at my soul,
and to consider
that humbly as a child and gently as a woman,
I come to adore you!

Consider again how I have, since dawn,
worked, fought, thought, walked, struggled,
explaining Nature to Man who knew nothing of it,
lighting everything with your clarity;

that, facing hate and anger,
I have done my task here below,
that I could not expect this wage,
that I could not

foresee that you too, on my yielding head,
would let fall heavily your triumphant arm,
and that you who saw how little joy I have,
would take my child away so quickly!

How a soul thus struck is likely to wail,
how I could curse,
and cast my cries at you like a child
throwing stones in the sea!

Consider how one doubts, O God! when one suffers,
how the eye that weeps too much is blinded,
how a being plunged by grief into the blackest pit,
seeing you no more, cannot contemplate you.

And it cannot be that a Man, when he sinks
under affliction,
has in his wit the sober serenity
of the constellations!

Today, I who was weak as a mother,
I bend to your feet before your open skies.
I feel myself enlightened in my bitter sadness
by a better outlook on the universe.

Lord, I realize that Man is crazy
if he dares complain;
I’ve stopped accusing, I’ve stopped cursing,
but let me weep!

Alas! let the tears run down from my eyes,
since you have made Men for this!
Let me lean over this cold stone
and say to my child: Do you feel that I am here?

Let me speak to her, bent over her remains,
in the evening when all is still,
as if, reopening her celestial eyes in her night,
this angel could hear me!

Alas! turning an envious eye on the past,
while nothing here below can console me,
I keep seeing that moment in my life
when I saw her open her wings and fly off!

I will see that instant until I die,
the instant, no tears needed!
where I cried: the child I had a minute ago—
What? I don’t have her any more?

Do not be irritated that I am like this,
O my God! this wound bled for so long!
The anguish in my heart is still the strongest thing,
and my heart is submissive, but not resigned.

Do not be angry! Brows claimed by sorrow,
mortals subject to tears,
for us it is not easy to withdraw our souls
from these great griefs.

You see, we really need our children,
Lord; when one has seen in one’s life, some morning,
in the midst of cares, hardships, miseries,
and of the shadow our fate casts over us,

how a child appears, a dear sacred head,
a small joyful creature,
so beautiful one thinks a door to heaven has opened
when it arrives;

when for sixteen years one has watched this other self
grow in loveable grace and sweet reason,
when one has realized that this child one loves
makes daylight in our soul and in our home,

that it is the only joy that remains here below
of all that one has dreamed of;
consider that it is a very sad thing
to watch it going away!

--Victor Hugo (1802-1885)

A Villequier

Maintenant que Paris, ses pavés et ses marbres,
Et sa brume et ses toits sont bien loin de mes yeux ;
Maintenant que je suis sous les branches des arbres,
Et que je puis songer à la beauté des cieux ;

Maintenant que du deuil qui m'a fait l'âme obscure
Je sors, pâle et vainqueur,
Et que je sens la paix de la grande nature
Qui m'entre dans le coeur ;

Maintenant que je puis, assis au bord des ondes,
Ému par ce superbe et tranquille horizon,
Examiner en moi les vérités profondes
Et regarder les fleurs qui sont dans le gazon ;

Maintenant, ô mon Dieu ! que j'ai ce calme sombre
De pouvoir désormais
Voir de mes yeux la pierre où je sais que dans l'ombre
Elle dort pour jamais ;

Maintenant qu'attendri par ces divins spectacles,
Plaines, forêts, rochers, vallons, fleuve argenté,
Voyant ma petitesse et voyant vos miracles,
Je reprends ma raison devant l'immensité ;

Je viens à vous, Seigneur, père auquel il faut croire ;
Je vous porte, apaisé,
Les morceaux de ce coeur tout plein de votre gloire
Que vous avez brisé ;

Je viens à vous, Seigneur ! confessant que vous êtes
Bon, clément, indulgent et doux, ô Dieu vivant !
Je conviens que vous seul savez ce que vous faites,
Et que l'homme n'est rien qu'un jonc qui tremble au vent ;

Je dis que le tombeau qui sur les morts se ferme
Ouvre le firmament ;
Et que ce qu'ici-bas nous prenons pour le terme
Est le commencement ;

Je conviens à genoux que vous seul, père auguste,
Possédez l'infini, le réel, l'absolu ;
Je conviens qu'il est bon, je conviens qu'il est juste
Que mon coeur ait saigné, puisque Dieu l'a voulu !

Je ne résiste plus à tout ce qui m'arrive
Par votre volonté.
L'âme de deuils en deuils, l'homme de rive en rive,
Roule à l'éternité.

Nous ne voyons jamais qu'un seul côté des choses ;
L'autre plonge en la nuit d'un mystère effrayant.
L'homme subit le joug sans connaître les causes.
Tout ce qu'il voit est court, inutile et fuyant.

Vous faites revenir toujours la solitude
Autour de tous ses pas.
Vous n'avez pas voulu qu'il eût la certitude
Ni la joie ici-bas !

Dès qu'il possède un bien, le sort le lui retire.
Rien ne lui fut donné, dans ses rapides jours,
Pour qu'il s'en puisse faire une demeure, et dire :
C'est ici ma maison, mon champ et mes amours !

Il doit voir peu de temps tout ce que ses yeux voient ;
Il vieillit sans soutiens.
Puisque ces choses sont, c'est qu'il faut qu'elles soient ;
J'en conviens, j'en conviens !

Le monde est sombre, ô Dieu ! l'immuable harmonie
Se compose des pleurs aussi bien que des chants ;
L'homme n'est qu'un atome en cette ombre infinie,
Nuit où montent les bons, où tombent les méchants.

Je sais que vous avez bien autre chose à faire
Que de nous plaindre tous,
Et qu'un enfant qui meurt, désespoir de sa mère,
Ne vous fait rien, à vous !

Je sais que le fruit tombe au vent qui le secoue ;
Que l'oiseau perd sa plume et la fleur son parfum ;
Que la création est une immense roue
Qui ne peut se mouvoir sans écraser quelqu'un ;

Les mois, les jours, les flots des mers, les yeux qui pleurent,
Passent sous le ciel bleu ;
Il faut que l'herbe pousse et que les enfants meurent ;
Je le sais, ô mon Dieu !

De vos cieux, au-delà de la sphère des nues,
Au fond de cet azur immobile et dormant,
Peut-être faites-vous des choses inconnues
Où la douleur de l'homme entre comme élément.

Peut-être est-il utile à vos desseins sans nombre
Que des êtres charmants
S'en aillent, emportés par le tourbillon sombre
Des noirs événements.

Nos destins ténébreux vont sous des lois immenses
Que rien ne déconcerte et que rien n'attendrit.
Vous ne pouvez avoir de subites clémences
Qui dérangent le monde, ô Dieu, tranquille esprit !

Je vous supplie, ô Dieu ! de regarder mon âme,
Et de considérer
Qu'humble comme un enfant et doux comme une femme
Je viens vous adorer !

Considérez encor que j'avais, dès l'aurore,
Travaillé, combattu, pensé, marché, lutté,
Expliquant la nature à l'homme qui l'ignore,
Éclairant toute chose avec votre clarté ;

Que j'avais, affrontant la haine et la colère,
Fait ma tâche ici-bas,
Que je ne pouvais pas m'attendre à ce salaire,
Que je ne pouvais pas

Prévoir que, vous aussi, sur ma tête qui ploie,
Vous appesantiriez votre bras triomphant,
Et que, vous qui voyiez comme j'ai peu de joie,
Vous me reprendriez si vite mon enfant !

Qu'une âme ainsi frappée à se plaindre est sujette,
Que j'ai pu blasphémer,
Et vous jeter mes cris comme un enfant qui jette
Une pierre à la mer !

Considérez qu'on doute, ô mon Dieu ! quand on souffre,
Que l'oeil qui pleure trop finit par s'aveugler.
Qu'un être que son deuil plonge au plus noir du gouffre,
Quand il ne vous voit plus, ne peut vous contempler,

Et qu'il ne se peut pas que l'homme, lorsqu'il sombre
Dans les afflictions,
Ait présente à l'esprit la sérénité sombre
Des constellations !

Aujourd'hui, moi qui fus faible comme une mère,
Je me courbe à vos pieds devant vos cieux ouverts.
Je me sens éclairé dans ma douleur amère
Par un meilleur regard jeté sur l'univers.

Seigneur, je reconnais que l'homme est en délire,
S'il ose murmurer ;
Je cesse d'accuser, je cesse de maudire,
Mais laissez-moi pleurer !

Hélas ! laissez les pleurs couler de ma paupière,
Puisque vous avez fait les hommes pour cela !
Laissez-moi me pencher sur cette froide pierre
Et dire à mon enfant : Sens-tu que je suis là ?

Laissez-moi lui parler, incliné sur ses restes,
Le soir, quand tout se tait,
Comme si, dans sa nuit rouvrant ses yeux célestes,
Cet ange m'écoutait !

Hélas ! vers le passé tournant un oeil d'envie,
Sans que rien ici-bas puisse m'en consoler,
Je regarde toujours ce moment de ma vie
Où je l'ai vue ouvrir son aile et s'envoler !

Je verrai cet instant jusqu'à ce que je meure,
L'instant, pleurs superflus !
Où je criai : L'enfant que j'avais tout à l'heure,
Quoi donc ! je ne l'ai plus !

Ne vous irritez pas que je sois de la sorte,
Ô mon Dieu ! cette plaie a si longtemps saigné !
L'angoisse dans mon âme est toujours la plus forte,
Et mon coeur est soumis, mais n'est pas résigné.

Ne vous irritez pas ! fronts que le deuil réclame,
Mortels sujets aux pleurs,
Il nous est malaisé de retirer notre âme
De ces grandes douleurs.

Voyez-vous, nos enfants nous sont bien nécessaires,
Seigneur ; quand on a vu dans sa vie, un matin,
Au milieu des ennuis, des peines, des misères,
Et de l'ombre que fait sur nous notre destin,

Apparaître un enfant, tête chère et sacrée,
Petit être joyeux,
Si beau, qu'on a cru voir s'ouvrir à son entrée
Une porte des cieux ;

Quand on a vu, seize ans, de cet autre soi-même
Croître la grâce aimable et la douce raison,
Lorsqu'on a reconnu que cet enfant qu'on aime
Fait le jour dans notre âme et dans notre maison,

Que c'est la seule joie ici-bas qui persiste
De tout ce qu'on rêva,
Considérez que c'est une chose bien triste
De le voir qui s'en va !

*****

Victor Hugo was devastated when his oldest and favorite daughter, Leopoldine, died at age 19 in 1843, shortly after her marriage. She was drowned in the Seine at Villequier, pulled down by her heavy skirts, when a boat overturned. Her young husband died trying to save her. Hugo is the author of Les Misérables and Notre-Dame de Paris, known in English as The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. Hugo was known as one of the greatest elegiac and lyric poets of his time. He is sometimes identified as the greatest French poet. When Hugo died in Paris, his state funeral was attended by nearly two million people. He was laid to rest alongside Rousseau and Voltaire.

~Wikipedia and lucidcafe.com

http://www.consolatio.com/2005/01/at_villequier.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Hugo

http://www.lucidcafe.com/library/96feb/hugo.html