Arrival in the Stars by Jean Rameau

Author:Jean Rameau [Rameau, Jean]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Black Coat Press
Published: 2018-02-26T00:00:00+00:00

VI. Under the Apple Tree

This is how Adrian spoke, sitting under the Saint John apple tree, in the deserted orchard, beside Eve, who listened to him, so emotional that she scarcely dared to interrupt him.

“Mademoiselle, I have no need to tell you that I have contracted for you, in a few days, the most tender of affections. And you understand that if I employ the word ‘affection’ it is because another word, so frequent on human lips, ought no longer to be pronounced by mine.

“You must be twenty years old; I’m fifty, and I shall not commit the impropriety of forgetting it. I believed that my heart was invulnerable, for it too has been plunged in the waters of the Styx, but I have felt keenly, at the sight of you, at your approach, that that heart was like Achilles’ heel. The person who dipped it in the black river forgot to immunize the place where her fingers held it.

“You’re pretty, Mademoiselle Eve, and all the seductions of the first Eve are within you, and I have had the displeasure of discovering that I still have some of the weaknesses of Adam. I am deeply ashamed of that.

“But I perceived that your affection could be sweet for me, and that, inspired by you, I might perhaps succeed in doing great things, in fulfilling a certain mission that I imposed on myself thirty years ago. I beg you, therefore, to grant me, if it is possible, your precious collaboration.”

“Anything that pleases you, Mater,” the young woman said, lowering her eyelids under Adrian’s gaze—a sharp gaze, which passed like two searchlights into the depths of her being.

“That collaboration, if I obtain it from you meekly, might perhaps have incalculable results for human beings. It’s a matter of their happiness, their repose, their confidence in the future. It’s matter, in brief, of appeasing the ‘Great Torment’ of which I’ve spoken in one of my books, which is the uncertainty we are in as to what awaits us after death.

“I don’t know whether you have faith, Mademoiselle: a robust, well-reasoned, indestructible faith. Those who do are very happy. The Great Torment does not afflict them. They are convinced that in doing good on earth they will rediscover in the heavens the dear beings that they have lost. And they fulfill all their duties, accept all sacrifices. They are altruistic out of egotism, which is the result of all well-conceived religions.

“Unfortunately, the number of believers is diminishing every day. Scientists, philosophers, and rationalists are gnawing away at our religions like woodworm at a rotten beam. And the old edifice is in the process of cracking over society. One senses the impending disasters. There are distressed minds that would like to believe, but no longer can; which would like to think that everything is not finished when the body has been carried away between four planks, but who dare not. It is for those minds that I labor, that I seek, that I battle with the Mystery.

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