Philip goes and tells Andrew about it; and then Andrew and Philip tell Jesus about it. 12th century Philippe-Auguste Paris, capital of France

22. Philip is coming and tells Andrew about it; and then Andrew and Philip tell Jesus about it. Philip did not dare to report the desire of the Hellenes to Christ himself. Firstly, he could be confused here by the recollection of the commandment given by Christ regarding the Gentiles (Matt. 10:5) and the word of Christ regarding

"Live? Servants will do it for us"

Auguste Villiers de Lisle-Adan (from the drama "Axel")

In his famous essay "Supernatural Horror in Literature" H. F. Lovecraft among the most interesting and influential works on the development of "terrible literature" names the story of Villiers de Lisle-Adana "The Torture of Hope", and not only calls it, but also awards it with an enthusiastic epithet - "one of the most heartbreaking stories in the history of literature." Agree, such a recognition from the lips of the master of horror is worth a lot. At the same time, the name of Villiers de Lisle-Adana (sometimes spelled Lil-Adam) is almost unknown to a wide circle of modern Russian readers.

So who is Auguste Villiers de Lisle-Adan? Oh, this person is extremely interesting, talented, controversial and strange. Laureate Nobel Prize, the author of the famous "Blue Bird" Maurice Maeterlinck, who in his youth happened to meet Villiers, later admitted in his memoirs that no other communication made such an amazing impression on him as communication with Villiers de Lisle-Adan.

Villiers de Lisle-Adan - one of the best French novelists 19th century, "prince of storytellers", "French Poe", idol "advanced" French youth the end of the century before last and the Russian Symbolists of the Silver Age, an exquisite snob-aristocrat, a count, an impoverished descendant of the ancient noble family, who equally despised both the ignorance of the mob and the thirst for profit of the bourgeoisie, and at the same time - a real beggar bohemian " damn poet", capable of extravagant, completely crazy and romantic deeds. Villiers was sure that the founder of the Order of Malta, Philip de l'Isle-Adam, was his direct ancestor, and this gave Villiers a reason to promote himself to the Grand Masters of the Order of Malta and write a letter to Queen Victoria demanding the release of Malta, because the island at that time belonged to the English crown. Another famous trick of Villiers was the claim for the vacant throne of the King of Greece. Legend has it that the writer hoped for the support of the French emperor Napoleon III, achieved an audience with Napoleon and, hung with fake foreign orders, appeared at the palace, shaking a pile of papers confirming the antiquity of his family, and with recommendations from distant relatives from Russia and England.

It's a pity to destroy beautiful legend, but he never reached Emperor Villiers: instead of the monarch in the palace, the Marquis Bassano, a confidant of Napoleon III, communicated with him. In addition, the writer was greatly mistaken about the centuries-old antiquity of his kind, noble birth Villiers is beyond doubt, but the belief that the family tree of Lil-Adanov stretches right from the Middle Ages caused ridicule even during the life of the writer, while modern researchers have established that Villiers' ancestors have been known "only" since the beginning of the 17th century and have nothing to do with "namesakes" from the Order of Malta.

In any case, Villiers' attempt to take the Greek throne failed, and it is unlikely that he seriously wanted to become the ruler of the country, he wanted to become king, but just to confirm the nobility of his family, it was a kind of romantic gesture, quixotic. Maximilian Voloshin, by the way, a great admirer of the works of Villiers de Lisle-Adan, wrote an article at the beginning of the last century about the life and work of the writer, in which he describes the episode with self-nomination to the Greek throne according to Villiers' friend, the famous writer Stefan Mallarme:

- "And what would you do, Villiers," Mallarme once asked him, "if you were really elected king of the Hellenes?"

Oh, I would arrange a solemn entry: flowers ... fanfare .... In magnificent royal attire, I enter the palace ... and then go out to the people on the balcony - alone, completely naked. I would appear like that for a moment and then hide in my palace. They would never see me again. I would rule unseen."

However, gossips it was said that the oddities and quirks of Lil-Adan are not only "oddities of a genius", but also the result of an excessive addiction to the "green absinthe fairy". Villier's love for it alcoholic drink was publicly known. A contemporary of the writer, the well-known writer and evil wit Edmond de Goncourt, debunking the bohemian idols of the French youth of the second half of the 19th century, Baudelaire, Verlaine and Villiers de Lille-Adant, in one of his articles calls the first "sadist", the second - "husband", and the third - "alcoholic". The passion for absinthe played a certain role in the fact that the writer died barely over a half-century milestone. It happened in Paris in 1889. And Villiers made his first steps in the North of France in Brittany, in the town of Saint-Brieuc. He was born into the family of an impoverished nobleman in 1838. If it were not for a wealthy aunt who helped from time to time, the family would have lived quite modestly. Father Villier, to the misfortune of his household, was firmly convinced that he was a descendant of the Master of the Order of Malta (as I wrote above, this conviction was passed on to his son) and spent all his small fortune in search of mythical treasures of alleged ancestors. When Villiers was seven years old, he got lost at the fair, he was picked up by traveling artists and for two weeks he traveled with them to the fairs of Northern France until his parents found him. The boy showed early brilliant abilities in literature and music, and his parents had no doubt that over time he would glorify his family and France, so when Villiers turned 20, the family sold the house and land in Saint-Brieuc and went to Paris, where creative person able to make full use of his talents. How could young Villiers have imagined that almost all 30 years of his life in Paris would turn into years of hopeless poverty, humiliation and worldly troubles.

At first, everything did not go so badly, the young man published his first book - a collection of poems, met many representatives of the literary elite of France, and later made friends with some. The meeting with Baudelaire became especially important, the classic advised the young writer to get acquainted with the work of Edgar Allan Poe. Villiers was incredibly impressed by the stories of the American, from now on Poe became a model for him and literary landmark. The influence of Edgar Allan Poe in Villiers' stories is very noticeable, and not only to a specialist in literary criticism, but even to an ordinary reader.

Villiers' literary gift is multifaceted: poetry, dramatic works, articles, essays, novels, but most of all he succeeded in small prose form. But then he will be called the "prince of storytellers", and in the 60-70s. In the 19th century, the strange stories of Villiers were not accepted by publishers for publication very willingly: someone saw echoes of outdated romanticism in these stories, someone seemed excessive merciless satire. The fact is that Villiers was a completely “out of this world” person, everyday life seemed boring and vulgar to him, he lived in a world of his own fantasies and invented principles, in his dreams he was a knight, the Grand Master of the Order of Malta and the king of Greece and did not know how and did not want to adapt to the conditions of the business bourgeois era. The fantastic novel "Future Eve" about an android woman allegedly created by the inventor Edison (quite a bold idea for the 19th century, Stanislav Lem also notes this in the book "Fiction and Futurology") Villiers wrote lying on the bare floor, because all the furniture was taken out of the apartment for debts. By the way, the word "android" in the meaning of " humanoid robot"It went into a wide circulation precisely thanks to the novel by Wille de Lille-adan. For what kind of work he sometimes did not have to work to earn a living: he was a" walking advertisement "of the manufactory company, a" mannequin "in the office of a psychiatrist and a sparring partner in the boxing matches. He nevertheless refused once from a profitable marriage, only because of a profitable marriage, only because of a profitable marriage, only he was elected that it was chosen only because it was chosen. Nitsa did not understand the literature.

Fellow writers recognized the great literary talent of the writer, but the recognition of the reading public came to him only in 1883 after the publication of the collection "Cruel Stories" ("Contes cruels"). The overwhelming majority of the works included in the collection had already been published earlier in the periodical press, but collected together, the stories sparkled with new colors and produced a strong effect. The success of "Cruel Tales" allowed Villier to publish more often, the novel "Future Eve" was published, several collections, including "New Cruel Tales", but all this did not improve much financial position writer. He died in almost total poverty. A few days before his death, the seriously ill Villiers married his last mistress in order to legitimize their common son. Ironically, Villier's wife was completely illiterate and instead of signing, she could only put a cross on the wedding act. What a humiliation for a literary aesthete!

As is often the case, shortly after the death of the writer overtook real glory. He was recognized as one of the founders of the new literary movement- symbolism. At the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. Villiers was one of the most popular French authors. The writer Remy de Gourmont dedicated the novel Sistine to him. At the beginning of the 20th century, Villiers de Lisle-Adan was also very popular in Russia, collections of his stories were repeatedly published (some with a preface by Valery Bryusov), M. Voloshin translated the drama "Axel" into Russian, which was also called the "symbolist Bible" (translation published in 1975).

In the Soviet Union, Villiers de Lisle-Adan was never banned: he once supported the Paris Commune and this gave a formal reason to refer him to "progressive authors", and there was plenty of evil criticism of the bourgeoisie in his works. Nevertheless, Villiers was rarely published. Depression, decadence and mysticism of the writer did not fit into the recommended creative framework. In 1975, in the famous series "Literary Monuments", the book "Cruel Tales" was published, containing the collection of the same name and numerous Additional materials, and even this edition did not include some stories from the original author's collection, according to the compilers "in sharp contrast to the main body of the book", including a mystical short story " Prophetic dream". Such gaps in the academic edition of the author's collection, recognized as a classic, in my opinion - are completely unacceptable.

Why is Villier interesting to fans of "dark literature"?

The influence of the writer on the literature of mysticism and horror is undoubtedly and great: among the writers who have experienced the influence of Villiers' prose, one should name H. G. Evers, G. Meyrink, and from the modern ones - Brian Stableford.

Particularly interesting are a number of stories written by Villiers under the influence of the works of Poe and romantic writers. So one of the best stories Villiers "Torture of Hope", as the author himself admitted, was written as a kind of imitation of Edgar Allan Poe's story "The Well and the Pendulum". In 1983, the famous Czech film director Jan Švankmajer made short film"Pendulum, well and hope", combining the storylines of the stories of Edgar Allan Poe and Villiers de Lille-Adan into one whole. Completely "edgarope" in spirit is and mystical story- "Vera" (filmed in Spain in 1974 under the title "Vera, un cuento cruel"), in any case, the theme of the resurrection of a dead beloved is one of the most important in Poe's work.

The gloomy and disturbing atmosphere of classic gothic stories surrounds the reader in the stories "Prophetic Dream", "Duke of Portland", "The Secret of the Scaffold".

It should be noted that Villiers is primarily a satirist. However, Edgar Allan Poe, so revered by him and by all of us, was also to a large extent a satirist and his satirical works are no less than "gloomy". A good sense of humor only helps the writer understand human nature and emotions, and it is psychology that is the basis of any high-quality horror. So Villiers is a satirist. The satirist is brilliant, but peculiar and cruel. His humor is refined and cynical, only a "unfinished romantic" shabby by life can joke like that.

In the satirical stories of the writer, humor is intertwined with fear, exposing the cruelty of the world of consumption, where everything is bought and sold, where the most sacred ideals are put up for sale - so in the story "Bet" a priest who lost in cards puts on the line main secret churches. Many essentially satirical stories by Villiers are realized in the form of "dark", gloomy works, in which terrible, almost infernal characters act (the bloody sadistic aristocrat from the story "Visitor of the Final Celebrations", the insane arsonist from "The Desire to Be Human" or the merciless Queen Isabella of Bavaria from the story "Queen Isabeau"), and the characters find themselves in truly terrible situations ("It's easy to make a mistake", "Whims Mr. Redu", by the way, this story was included in the anthology of the classic horror "Room in the Tower", Kiev, 1993).

In the 20th century, Villiers' stories were repeatedly included in various anthologies:

"Anthology of black humor" (1940), compiled by the founder of surrealism Andre Breton, "Anthology fantasy literature"(1940) by Jorge Luis Borges, Adolfo Bioy Casares and Silvina Ocampo, "Racconti Fantastici Dell'Ottocento" (1983) by Italo Calvino. In different countries Villiers' works became participants in anthologies of mysticism and horror (most often - the story "Torture by Hope").

Interest in the work of Villiers around the world continues to this day. For example, the famous anime film Ghost in the Shell: Innocence begins with a quote from Future Eve: "If science has explained our gods and our hopes, then there is a scientific explanation for love." Not so long ago, a number of the writer's works were translated into English by the already mentioned Brian Stableford, the author of The Empire of Fear. Over the past decade, almost completely "Cruel Stories", the drama "Axel", and some other works of the master have been published in Russian. Of course, now he is no longer among the "fashionable" authors, but this is for the best - only true connoisseurs of refined decadence, evil satire, real romance and dark melancholy where there is still room for faith and hope.

Auguste Villiers de Lisle-Adan.

Edgar Poe. Well and pendulum.

It was in the old days. One evening, under the arches of the Saragossa official, accompanied by a fra redemptor (shoulder case) and preceded by two detectives of the Inquisition with lanterns, the Reverend Pedro Arbuse de Espila, the sixth prior of the Dominicans of Segovia, the third Grand Inquisitor of Spain, descended to the most distant chamber. The latch of the heavy door creaked: everyone entered the fetid in-pace, where the faint light penetrating through the window under the ceiling made it possible to distinguish between the iron rings embedded in the wall, blood-blackened wooden goats, a brazier, a mug. On a bed of dung, in chains and with a collar, sat a man of indistinguishable age, with a frantic expression on his face and in tatters. This prisoner was none other than Rabbi Aser Abarbanel, an Aragonese Jew accused of usury and ruthless neglect of the poor, who had been subjected to daily torture for more than a year. And yet, because “his blindness was as strong as his skin,” he stubbornly refused to renounce his faith. Proud of his ancient ancestors and the fact that his lineage has been going on for more than one thousand years, for all Jews worthy of their name jealously guard the purity of their blood, he, according to the Talmud, descended from Othoniel and Ipsiboi, the wife of this last judge of Israel - this circumstance also supported his courage during the most cruel and lengthy tortures. And now, with eyes full of tears at the thought that this so firm soul renounces eternal salvation, the Reverend Pedro Arbuez de Espila, approaching the trembling rabbi, uttered the following words:

Rejoice, my son. Your trials in this earthly vale are coming to an end. If, in the face of such stubbornness, I, suffering in my soul, had to allow such harsh measures, my mission of fraternal correction also has a limit. You are a fig tree that stubbornly did not bear fruit and deserved to dry up ... But only the Lord God can decide the fate of your soul. Perhaps his boundless mercy will illuminate her at the last moment! We must hope so! There were examples of this... So be it! Rest tonight in peace! Tomorrow you will become a member of the auto-da-fe, that is, you will be exhibited at the quemadero - a powerful brazier, a harbinger of eternal hellish flame. As you know, it does not burn immediately, death occurs in two (or even three) hours thanks to the logs soaked in ice water, with which we protect the head and heart of the victims. You will be only forty-three. Consider that, being in the last row, you will have enough time to call on the Lord and, with his name, receive this fiery baptism, which is baptism in the holy spirit. Trust in the illuminating light and fall asleep.

Having finished this speech, Don Pedro Arbuez made a sign that the chains were removed from the unfortunate man, and affectionately kissed him. Then came Fra Redemptor's turn, who whispered to the Jew for forgiveness for all he had endured in order to be reborn. Then both detectives kissed him, silently and without removing their hoods. Finally, this ceremony ended, and the perplexed prisoner remained in the darkness and alone.

With a parched mouth, with a face numb from suffering, Rabbi Aser Abarbanel at first glanced at the locked door without much attention and without definite intentions. “Is it locked?..” This word, incomprehensible to him, awakened a certain thought in his clouded consciousness. The fact is that for a moment he caught the light of lanterns in the gap between the door and the wall. A vague hope arose in his weakening brain, shook his whole being. He dragged himself towards the unusual thing that appeared to him. And so, slowly, with the greatest precautions, he slipped one finger through the crack and pulled the door toward him... Oh, marvelous! By a strange accident, the detective who locked the door did not turn the heavy key a full turn. So the rusty tongue did not reach the end, and now the door rolled back into its narrow niche.

The rabbi peered out apprehensively. In the whitish twilight, he made out at first a semicircle of an earthy-colored wall, like a perforated spiral of steps, and directly opposite him, above five or six such steps, a black hole, something like a passage into a spacious corridor, but from below you could only see the first bend of its vault.

And so he stretched out and crawled to this threshold. Yes, there was a corridor, but the corridor is infinitely long! A deathly pale light streamed from the vaults, such as one sees in dreams: weak lamps were hung there at certain intervals, giving the dark air a slight blueness, but in the depths of the corridor there was only darkness. And along its entire length, not a single side door was seen. Only on the left side, in the deepening of the wall, small holes covered with bars let in light, apparently, in the evening, since in some places reddish stripes lay on the floor slabs. And what a terrifying silence!.. But still, there, in the very depths of this darkness, there was, perhaps, some way out to freedom. The barely glimmering hope of the Jew did not leave him: after all, she was the last.

Therefore, without knowing where, he dragged himself along the slabs of the corridor under the vents, trying in no way to stand out from the crowd. dark background endless wall. He moved very slowly, pressing his chest against the slabs and trying not to cry out, even when some open wound caused him acute pain.

Suddenly, the echo of this stone passage brought him the shuffling sound of someone's sandals. He trembled, gasping with fear, his eyes darkening. Here you go! Now it's probably the end of everything! He huddled all over, squatting in the recess of the wall, and, half-dead with fear, waited. It was a detective hurrying somewhere. He passed quickly, terrifying in his hood and muscle-ripping tongs in his hand, and disappeared. Sudden horror, as if squeezing the entire body of the rabbi, deprived him of his last vitality, and for almost an hour he was unable to move. Fearing more torture if he was found out, he thought about returning back to the stone bag. But the stubborn hope in his soul whispered to him the divine “maybe”, which strengthens the spirit of a person even in the most desperate situation! The miracle happened! No need to doubt! And he crawled again towards a possible release. Exhausted by torture and hunger, trembling with fear, he nevertheless moved forward. And this crypt-like corridor seemed to lengthen in a mysterious way. And there was no end to his slow progress, and all the time he looked there, into this darkness, where the saving exit should have been.

Wow! The footsteps sounded again, but this time they were slower and heavier. In the distance, on a dark background, the black-and-white figures of two inquisitors in turned-brimmed hats appeared. They spoke quietly, apparently in some way disagreeing with each other on some important issue, as both gesticulated vigorously.

Seeing them, Rabbi Aser Abarbanel closed his eyes. His heart was pounding so that it seemed he was about to die, rags soaked with icy dying sweat. Motionless, he stretched out along the wall under the very candlestick with his mouth open and silently called out to the god of David.

Coming close to him, the inquisitors stopped just under the lamp, apparently by chance, carried away by their argument. One of them, listening attentively to his interlocutor, looked in the direction of the rabbi. And the unfortunate, who did not immediately realize that this look was absent-minded, unseeing, it seemed that the red-hot tongs were again digging into his tormented flesh. So, he will again become a continuous scream, a continuous wound!

In a semi-conscious state, without the strength to breathe, he blinked helplessly and trembled at the slightest touch of the inquisitor's cassock. However - although a strange thing, but at the same time quite natural - the look of the inquisitor testified that at the moment he was deeply preoccupied with what to answer to the speeches that he was listening to and which, apparently, completely absorbed him: this look was directed at one point - at the Jew, but at the same time, it seemed, did not see him at all.

And indeed, after a few minutes, both ominous interlocutors, with slow steps and all the time talking quietly, continued their way in the direction from which the prisoner was crawling. IT DID NOT BE SEEN! But he was in such a terrifying confusion of feelings that the thought pierced his brain: “Am I not dead, since they don’t see me?” He was pulled out of his lethargy by a disgusting sensation: from the wall near his face and directly against his eyes - so it seemed to him - two fierce eyes of someone were fixed. His hair stood on end; with a sudden, unconscious movement, he leaned back. But no, no! Feeling the stones, he realized that this reflection of the inquisitor's eyes in his pupils was, as it were, imprinted on two spots of this wall.

Forward! It is necessary to hasten to that goal, which seemed to him already, probably, to his sick consciousness as liberation! To this dusk, from which he was now some thirty paces away. And he again continued his painful path as quickly as possible, crawling on his knees, on his hands, on his stomach, and soon got into the unlit part of a long corridor.

Suddenly, the unfortunate felt on his hands, resting on the floor slabs, a sharp breath from under a small door at the very end of the corridor. Oh my God! If only this door led outside the prison! The exhausted fugitive was dizzy with hope. He looked at the door from top to bottom, but he could not do it well because of the darkness around him. He began to grope - no heck, no lock. Gate valve! The prisoner straightened up, the latch gave way to his pressure, the door swung open in front of him.

Hallelujah! - the rabbi let out a deep sigh of gratitude from his expanded chest, now standing up to his full height on the threshold and peering at what appeared to his eyes.

The door opened to the gardens under the stars of a clear night, opened to spring, freedom, life! There, behind the gardens, fields seemed to be, and behind them - mountains, whose bluish outlines loomed in the sky - there was salvation! Oh run! He ran all night under the canopy of lemon groves, inhaled their aroma. Going deeper into the mountains, he will already be free. He breathed the blessed, sacred air, the wind poured life into him, his lungs revived! And in the heart sounded the words: “Veni foras!”, (“Get out!” (Latin)) addressed to Lazarus! And in order to better glorify the god who bestowed this favor on him, he stretched out his hands and raised his eyes to the sky. It was ecstasy.

And then it seemed to him that the shadow of his hands seemed to be addressing him, that these hands were embracing him, gently pressing him to someone's chest. And indeed, someone's tall figure was standing next to him. Trustingly, he looked down at this figure - and then his breath stopped in his chest, he became distraught, his eyes grew dim, his whole body trembled, his cheeks swelled, and saliva flowed from his mouth with horror.

Yes, mortal terror! He was in the arms of the Grand Inquisitor himself, Don Pedro Arbuez de Espila, who looked at him with eyes full of large tears with the air of a good shepherd who found a lost sheep ...

The gloomy priest pressed to his chest in a fit of ardent love the unfortunate Jew, who was painfully pricked by the coarse hair shirt of the Dominican through the fabric of his cassock. And while Rabbi Aser Abarbanel, rolling his eyes deeply, groaned hoarsely from despair in the ascetic hands of Don Pedro and vaguely understood that all the events of this fateful evening were just one more deliberate torture - torture by hope, the Grand Inquisitor, with a sorrowful look and a deep reproach in his voice, whispered, burning him with hot and broken breath from frequent fasting:

How so, my child! On the eve, perhaps, of eternal salvation ... you wanted to leave us!

Watch out, down there...

Folk proverb.

On this pre-autumn night, the old mansion with a large garden, where black-eyed Marielle lived - at the very end of the Faubourg Saint-Honoré - seemed to be asleep. Indeed, on the second floor, in the living room with upholstered furniture upholstered in cherry silk, long, low-drawn curtains behind the glass windows overlooking the sandy alleys and the fountain in the middle of the lawn did not let in the light burning in the house at all.

At the back of this room, behind a wide, Henry II-style curtain fastened to a metal rosette, one could see a white patterned tablecloth on a lighted table, still lined with coffee cups, vases of fruit, and crystal glasses, although cards had been played in the living room since midnight.

Beneath two tufts of silver leaves, reflecting the light of two sconces mounted on a cloth-covered wall, two most elegantly dressed gentlemen of a very respectable appearance with an English - matte - complexion, long smooth sideburns and restrained smiles slightly bowed the milky snow of their waistcoats over the table for playing ecarte. The adversary of one of them was a young abbot, unusually, although, in general, quite naturally pale (one might say deathly pale), whose presence in this salon seemed at least strange.

Nearby, Mariel, in muslin desabil that set off the blackness of her eyes, with a bouquet of violets on her chest, behind which a certain snowy whiteness rose and fluttered, from time to time filled tall thin glasses on a small table with an ice rederer, all the while fanning with her lips the flame of a Russian cigarette, clamped in a ring-tweezers on her little finger. Also, from time to time she smiled at the not too drunken speeches, which, suddenly and as if spurred on by some restrained impulse, began to scatter in her ear, bending over the pearly of her shoulders, the guest not busy with the game. After listening, she honored him with a monosyllabic answer.

Then silence fell again, barely broken by the rustle of cards and bank notes, the slight clinking of gold coins and mother-of-pearl tokens.

The air of the room, the furniture, the draperies - all this gave off a kind of vague, languid smell, which mixed the stuffiness of velvet, the slight causticity of oriental tobacco, the barely perceptible aroma of chiseled ebony, something similar to the fragrance of iris.

The cloven player, Abbot Tusser, was one of those utterly de-voted clerics whose highly disagreeable breed, fortunately, now seems to be disappearing. There was nothing in him, however, of the little abbots of bygone days, with such plump, smiling cheeks that their frivolity was almost excusable before the court of history. The same - tall, some kind of roughly knocked together, with a sharply protruding lower jaw - was a different, more gloomy breed. This impression was so strong that at times it seemed that his image became even darker from the shadow of some unknown crime committed by him.

The special leaden tint of his pallor, as it were, testified to cold sadism. A sly smile on his lips slightly softened the barbaric coarseness of the features of this face. Black pupils, in which aggressiveness lurked, shone under a heavy square forehead with straight eyebrows, and their gloomy gaze, often directed at one point, was, as it were, preoccupied. His voice, stifled since the seminary days, had acquired a certain dullness over the years, softening its sharpness, and yet it was felt that it was a dagger in a sheath. Always sullen, if he spoke, it was somehow condescendingly, putting one of his thumbs into his belt, very elegant, with a silk fringe. Very accustomed to communicating with the demi-monde, he rushed there, as if fleeing from himself, but was only accepted in this society, but not recognized: he was admitted because of the vague, indefinite fear that his personality seemed to exude. Others - dishonest and malicious people, with incomes of a very suspicious origin - invited him to somehow pepper, as far as possible (by the flashiness of his blasphemous presence, finally, by the scandalousness of his clergyman's clothes), the insipid banality of the dinner of inveterate revelers. But this did not work well, for the sight of him confused people even in these circles - modern skeptics do not really respect any deserters.

And really, why didn't he take off his cassocks? Maybe, having become fashionable in spiritual attire, he was afraid that, having changed into a frock coat, he would lose his originality? But no, it was simply too late: he had a seal on him. After all, people like him, even outwardly secularized, can always be recognized. It seems that through any clothes, no matter what they put on, the invisible cassock of Ness appears, which they cannot tear off themselves, even if they put it on only once: everyone notices its absence. And when, following some Renan, for example, they mock the Lord, their judge, it seems that in the middle of some unknown TRUE night, darkening in the depths of their eyes, we see a sudden reflection of a secret lantern and hear how a flimsy kiss sounds on the divine cheek, called Euphemism.

And now the question is: where did the gold come from, which he took out of his black pocket every day? Win? Let it be. This was mentioned in passing, without going into details. No one knew if he had debts, a mistress, amorous adventures. Besides, in this day and age... what would it matter? Everyone has their own little things. Women called him a "charming" man. That's all.

Seeing that the cards dealt to him were bad, Tusser collected them and laid them on the table.

Today I have a loss of sixteen thousand.

Do you want revenge? I'll bet twenty-five louis,' suggested the Viscount Le Glayel.

I do not recognize parole, and I have no more gold, ”Tusser answered.“ However, thanks to my rank, I have a certain secret - a great secret, and I decided to put it against your twenty-five louis in five rounds in a row.

After a rather long silence, the somewhat stunned Viscount Le Glayel asked:

What kind of a secret is this?

The secret of the CHURCH, - Tusser said coldly.

Either this tone of the gloomy player - sharp and completely devoid of any intention to evoke mystery, or nervous fatigue from this evening, or hops from drunk rederer, or all this taken together, had such an effect on the players and even on the laughing Mariel that they all flinched at these words. All three, looking at this strange man, felt as if a snake's head had suddenly appeared on the table between the candles.

The Church has so many mysteries ... that I could ask you what kind it is, - answered the Viscount Le Glayel, who controlled himself. - I must say, however, that I am not so curious about this. However, I won too much today to refuse you. Therefore, it was decided: twenty-five louis in five games in a row against the "secret" of the CHURCH!

The courtesy of a secular man apparently did not allow him to add: "Which does not interest us at all."

The players took up their cards again.

Abbot, do you know that at this moment you look like ... the devil? .. - Mariel asked with genuine innocence, whose face took on a thoughtful look.

In addition, your bet is unlikely to seem particularly tempting to non-believers, - the guest who was not busy in the game muttered carelessly, accompanying these words with one of the expressionless Parisian smiles, supposedly dismissive, but so inappropriate, as if they were caused by a salt shaker overturned on the table. - The secret of the church! Ha ha ha! This should be fun.

Tusser looked at him.

You will be able to judge for yourself if I lose again, ”he said.

The game started at a slower pace than before. First he won one game ... he; then - loss.

Here is the beauty! - he said.

A strange thing was happening. The attention of the spectators, slightly aroused from the very beginning by something like a superstitious feeling, which caused them to smile, little by little, gradually became more intent. It seemed that the very air around the players was saturated with some elusive solemnity, some kind of anxiety! I wanted to win.

In the last two games, Viscount Le Glaiel, having turned over the king of hearts, received four sevens and an eight that did not play during the distribution. Tusser, who held the five of spades, hesitated, then made a decisive, risky move and, as expected, lost. In the end, everything was played out very quickly.

The clergyman's eyes flashed for a moment, his brow furrowed.

Now Mariel looked at her pink nails again carelessly. The viscount absentmindedly contemplated the mother-of-pearl tokens without asking questions. The non-playing guest, turning away out of delicacy, partly opened (with a tact that really descended on him from above!) the curtains of the window where he was sitting.

Then, through the crowns of trees, a whitish early dawn penetrated into the room, weakening the radiance of candles, from which the hands of young people sitting in this living room began to appear deathly pale. And the fragrance that filled the room seemed to become more insipid, even less pure, as if fraught with regret for purchased pleasures, for the bitter joys of the flesh, a kind of fatigue! And as yet very vague, but threatening shadows suddenly passed over their faces, as if suggesting with an imperceptible shading what sad changes the future was preparing for them. Although no one here believed in anything but phantom pleasures, everyone suddenly heard the empty ringing of this existence when the ancient world sorrow suddenly, in spite of themselves, she touched with her wing these supposedly entertaining people: there was emptiness in them, the absence of hope, they already forgot, they were no longer afraid to find out ... a strange secret ... However ...

But the clergyman had already risen from his seat, icy cold blew from him, he was already holding his cocked hat in his hands. Looking around at the three somewhat bewildered people, he said in an official tone:

Let the bet I lost make you, madam, and you, gracious sovereigns, think about it! I'm paying.

And continuing to stare with a cold gaze at the smart hostess of the house and refined guests, he, lowering his voice, which nevertheless sounded like a death knell, uttered the following accursed, incredible words:

The secret of the church?.. It is... it is in THAT THERE IS NO PURGATORY.

And while they, not knowing what to think, looked at each other with some excitement, the abbe, bowing, calmly walked towards the door. Opening it, he once again turned his gloomy, deathly pale face with lowered eyes towards them and went out without the slightest noise.

Left alone, freed from this ghost, the young people breathed a sigh of relief.

This is probably not true! - naively muttered the sentimental, still a little excited Mariel.

The empty speeches of a man who has lost to smithereens, who himself does not know what he is grinding! cried Le Glaiel, in the tone of a wealthy groom. “Purgatory, hell, paradise!.. This is some kind of Middle Ages, all these things! Just nonsense!

Nothing to think about it! squeaked another vest.

But in the gloomy light of the coming day, the threatening lie of the young blasphemer still turned out to hit the target! All three went very pale. With stupid, forced smiles they drank the last glass of champagne.

And that morning, no matter how persistently the non-playing guest tried to persuade her, Mariel, perhaps for the sake of repentance, refused to yield to his amorous advances.

NOTES

Auguste Villiers de Lal-Adan.

(Full name - Philip Auguste Mathias Villiers de Lille-Adan; 1838-1889)

The short stories “Torture by Hope” and “The Headquarters” are taken from the collection “Cruel Stories” (Paris, 1883), published according to the ed.: Villiers de Lisle-Adan O. Selected. L., 1988.

1 Lazarus. - The episode of the resurrection of Lazarus is described in the Gospel of John (XI, 39-44): Lazarus had been lying in the tomb for four days, his sisters Mary and Martha were mourning. At the word of Jesus, he rose from the dead and came out of the darkness of the cave (in ancient Palestine, graves were often carved into the rock or placed in a cave), wrapped in funeral shrouds.

2 ...cassock Nessa... - Ness (Greek myth.) - a centaur slain by the arrow of Hercules; before his death, he gave advice to Dejanira, the hero's wife, to collect his blood and soak her husband's clothes with it in order to return his love. Putting on clothes poisoned by the blood of Nessus, Hercules, despite all efforts, could not take it off and died in terrible agony.

3 Renan- refers to the historian of religion Ernest Renan.

4 Euphemism- a softened expression instead of a sharp one.

The last descendant of one of the oldest aristocratic families, he spent almost his entire life in need, rushed into all sorts of adventures (many legends are associated with his name) and sometimes had to earn his own bread even as a “walking advertisement” of a manufacturing company and the like. He died almost penniless.

In literature, Villiers appeared in the collection "First Poems" ("Deux Essais de Poésie"), then moved on to drama, novel and short story. The novel "Isis" appeared in; in, and - dramas: "Elen", "Riot" ("La Révolte"), "Morgana" ("Morgane"); he published his short stories in periodicals, combined in the collection “Cruel Stories” (“Contes cruels”), which was the beginning of the highest flowering of his work; a number of collections of his short stories belong to this period: "L'Amour suprême",; "Tribula Bonomet" ("Tribulat Bonhomet"), ; "Extraordinary stories" ("Histoires insolites"), ; "New cruel stories" ("Nouveaux contes cruels"), novel "Eve of the future" ("L'Eve future") 1886 and dramatic poem"Axel" ("Axël").

Big influence Villiers' philosophical views were influenced by Schopenhauer with his pessimism and denial of life. In Villiers' short stories, irony is the main point in the treatment of contemporary themes. "Cruelty" - the motive of senseless, unmotivated suffering - determines the tone of all the writer's collections in general. Truly senseless and unmotivated seemed to him the suffering of the social group to which he belonged under the conditions of the new system. Many of Villiers' short stories reflect his occult tendencies and are built on the principle of the unrealistic short story by Edgar Allan Poe, who had a tremendous influence on Villiers' work: under the external, supposedly real, plot concept, the occult essence of the plot is hidden; despite the possibility of a real explanation, the facts are grouped in such a way as to make the reader not believe the real explanation. Villiers himself defined the essence of his poetics in the words: “If I were not a Parnassian, I would be a classic among romantics”. And he, who so often develops, like Edgar Allan Poe and Barbe D'Oreville, the "horror story", builds it logically and succinctly; it is precisely this, and not a heap of nightmares, that achieves the almost pathological effect that Villiers' short stories have on the reader. The influence of Villiers in world literature is very significant: it was especially felt in the 1910s and 1920s of the 20th century by writers of a surreal warehouse, such as McOrlan in France, G. G. Evers and Meyrink in Germany. To the writers' group, which in the 1880s. joined Villiers, include: Huysmans, E. Ello, L. Blois, Péladan.

The article uses the text of A. Shabad, which has passed into the public domain.

Consolidated editions

• Œuvres completes, t. 1-11. Paris: Mercure de France, 1922-1925
• Œuvres completes. Paris: Gallimard, 1986

Publications in Russian

• Secrets of the scaffold. Moscow, 1902
• Cruel stories. St. Petersburg., 1909 (reprinted 1912)
• New violent stories. M., 1911.
• Novels // French short story of the 19th century. T.2. M. - L., 1959.
• Cruel stories. M.: Nauka, 1975 (Literary monuments)
• Favorites. M. - L., 1988

Literature

• Friche V. M., Poetry of Nightmares and Horror, M., 1912
• Gourmont Remy, de, The Book of Masks. St. Petersburg: The Coming Day, 1913 (reissued: Tomsk: Aquarius, 1996)
• Voloshin M., Faces of creativity, St. Petersburg: Publishing house "Apollo", 1914 (reissued: L .: Nauka, 1988)
• Story French literature, vol. 3, M., 1959
• Mallarmé S., Les miens, P., 1892
• Gide André, Prétextes, P., 1905 and 1925
• Chapoutot H., Villiers de l'Isle Adam, P., 1908
• Rougemont E., de, Villiers de l'Isle Adam, P., 1910
• Clerget F., Villiers de l'Isle Adam, P., 1913
• Vander Meulen, L'idealisme de Villiers de l'Isle Adam, P., 1925
• Palgen R., Villiers de l'Isle Adam, auteur dramatique, 1925
• Drougard E., "L'Intersigne" de Villiers de l'Isle Adam, Histoire du texte ("Revue d'hist. litt. de la France", P., 1927, no. 1).
• Raitt A. W., Villiers de l'lsle-Adam et le mouvement symboliste, P., 1965
• Raitt A.W. The life of Villiers de l "Isle-Adam. Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford UP, 1981
• Bourre J.-P. Villiers de L "Isle Adam: Splendeur et misère. Paris: Belles Lettres, 2002
• Jolly G. Dramaturgie de Villiers de L "Isle-Adam. Paris: L" Harmattan, 2002

Links

• Villiers de Lisle-Adam, Philippe Auguste Mathias in the library of Maxim Moshkov

Wikimedia Foundation. 2010 .

• Viliev, Mikhail
• Villiers Philippe

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VILLIERS DE LILLE ADAN Philippe Auguste- VILLIER DE LILLE ADAN (Villiers de l Isle Adam) Philippe Auguste Matthias (1838-89) French writer. Anti-bourgeois sentiments (Morgan's dramas, 1866; Riot, 1870) brought him closer to the Communards; the defeat of the Paris Commune led to mysticism and pessimism ... ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

Villiers de Lisle-Adan Philippe Auguste Mathias- Villiers de l▓Isle Adam Philippe Auguste Mathias (7.11.1838, Saint-Brieuc, Brittany, ‒ 19.8.1889, Paris), count, French writer. In 1858 he published the collection First Poems. Disgust for the bourgeoisie and rebellious moods in dramas ... ... Great Soviet Encyclopedia