Sylvie
Sylvie
Part II 2011
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Introduction
Gérard de Nerval’s Sylvie1 was first published in La Revue des deux mondes in
August 1853, a year in which the author spent long periods in an asylum,
struggling against the nervous breakdowns which had plagued him throughout his
life2. Sylvie was later to make up part of Les Filles du Feu, a collection of eight
nouvelles3, a dedication and twelve sonnets, Les Chimères. The collection has a
complex history, since almost all of the material had been previously published,
and its final form was altered by Nerval several times in consultation with his
editor. The first edition appeared in January of 1854, just one year before the
The finished work deals with the romantic obsessions of a young, theatre-going
narrator. It concerns three women: Aurélie, an actress whom he has fallen in love
with from afar; Adrienne, a once-glimpsed beauty who has since become a nun;
and Sylvie, a country girl whom the narrator was close to in his youth, but who
he has not seen for some years. Each of these women seems to embody one
chance the narrator comes across an advertisement for a fête in Loisy, in the
Valois, where he spent much of his youth. This sparks a series of reminiscences
and prompts him to return to the area in search of Sylvie, who comes to embody
all the happy memories of his early years. In the mean time, the figures of
imagination.
1
Gérard de Nerval, Les Filles du Feu, ed. Jaques Bony (Paris: GF FLammarion, 1994). All subsequent
references to Les Filles du Feu are taken from this edition.
2
Those seeking a more detailed biographical study could turn to Norma Rinsler’s Gérard de Nerval,
(University of London: The Athlone Press, 1973), ch.1.
3
This term will be discussed more fully later.
The first sketches for Sylvie came in the summer of 1853, during a period of
convalescence which the author spent travelling around the Valois region,
scribbling down the memories of his childhood and youth which this provoked. In
1808, at around six months old, the young Gérard Labrunie (as he was then) had
been placed in the care of a wet-nurse in Loisy, where part of the nouvelle is set,
and following the death of his mother at the age of two, he was raised by a great-
uncle nearby. Even after returning to Paris to live with his father, a doctor, Nerval
continued to make frequent visits to the area which was later to inspire so much
of his creative output. His correspondence indicates that the process of drawing
together these jottings caused him considerable anguish; given his fragile mental
state, it is not too outlandish to suggest that writing this particular nouvelle may
have precipitated the final bout of madness which led to his death.
Nerval first won public acclaim for his translation of Goethe’s Faust, published at
the age of 20 in 1828. At the time, his father was keen that he should study to
become a notary, a career which he embarked upon with little enthusiasm. From
the 1830s, encouraged by Hugo, and accompanied by his lifelong friend Théophile
Gautier, Nerval became increasingly involved in the Romantic movement. His first
attempts at a literary career met with mixed success. A public protest made by a
large number of his friends and associates led to his arrest and imprisonment,
and on leaving prison, an outbreak of cholera meant that he was obliged to assist
his father in his work. The turning point came in 1834, when his maternal
grandfather died and left him around 30 000 francs, a sum which allowed him to
Jenny Colon, an actress with whom Nerval became romantically obsessed. The
magazine folded within two years, and the brief period of happiness and financial
well-documented eccentricities, rather than his literary qualities. This was not lost
his life, a kind of tragic hero who lost his life to Romanticism, with little
consideration for the influence of his work on later writers. Over the last century,
this view has been reconsidered by many critics. Proust, for instance, discusses
Sylvie in some detail, refuting the commonly held view that Nerval is “un écrivain
Les Filles du Feu was published as a collection of nouvelles, a term which Nerval
certainly approved, but one which is problematic for modern readers, particularly
more developed, yet “short story” is often too brief; Nerval’s nouvelles seem to
straddle both genres, despite the lack of any clear boundary between the two.
Many conflicting definitions already exist, but it is worth pointing out that Nerval
made a clear distinction between conte and nouvelle, the latter always having a
contemporary setting, free from the fantastic (i.e. not a fairy tale). As well as
this, a nouvelle often explores just one, often mundane, event and its
repercussions. Most of Les Filles du Feu do not comfortably fit this description.
childhood, a visit to the Valois area, and its consequences. This reductive
4
From a letter to his father (Oeuvres Complémentaires de Gérard de Nerval, ed. Jean Richer. Series :
Nouvelle Bibliothèque nervalienne, Vol. I (Paris : Minard Lettres Modernes, 1959)), reacting to
Mirecourt’s Gérard de Nerval.
5
Théophile Gautier, Histoire du Romantisme (Paris: Charpentier, 1874), pp. 134-6
6
Marcel Proust, Contre Sainte-Beuve (Paris: Gallimard, 1954)
synopsis nevertheless demonstrates one of the nouvelle’s key characteristics –
Sylvie is not driven by plot. The events of this nouvelle are of significance only to
one man, the narrator, and once we reach the conclusion, there has been no
progresses.
This treatment of time and memory is perhaps the most striking aspect of Sylvie,
and is well worth further discussion. Over the course of the nouvelle, we see our
narrator as man, boy, and youth, and the time of writing (1853) places its events
around twenty years in the past. These shifts between the ages of man are
by a movement through space (for instance the narrator’s journey to Loisy in the
post coach and his subsequent remembrance of similar childhood journeys). Place
and memory, space and time, are inextricably linked in this text. One might
nouvelle’s events unfold, but in Sylvie these are of primary importance, since the
Valois childhood. His journey there is not only a physical return (through space),
is complex. Events which are situated at completely different points in time follow
each other in quick succession; years are dispensed with in a single sentence, yet
an evening can occupy an entire chapter. The reader is often left without any
nouvelle, when the narrator is unable to find a functioning timepiece (“Je n’avais
7
Bony edition, p.179
of lavish detail the narrator informs us that it has been inactive for over two
nouvelle’s main themes: an obsession with the past, and a lack of temporal
awareness.
The importance of space and time is also crucial to our understanding of the three
physical description, yet each occupies such a distinct spatial and temporal
position that they become more than mere ciphers. Aurélie belongs to the
narrator’s vivid, worldly present, at the heart of Parisian society. At the nouvelle’s
outset, she is the most tangible of the three. Her existence is corroborated by the
fantasy. Bound up with her status as a city-dweller are ideas of culture, glamour,
comes from the narrator’s past, then is re-introduced to his present with a view
to her forming a part of his future. Our narrator clearly situates her in a pastoral
setting by linking her to his impressions of the Valois region. Our first encounter
with her takes place by a sixteenth-century castle, in a part of the world which
repeats ancient druidic traditions “d’âge en âge”. We also learn that she is from a
neighbouring hamlet – as far removed from the Paris metropolis as possible. This
actresses). Place and time do more than simply inform the characters of these
This is particularly true of Adrienne. Our narrator makes it clear that he has only
had one meeting with her (a beauty “à peine entrevue”), so she must be from the
past, and yet of the three women, she is the one who has most haunted his
thoughts over the years. His obsession with her is based on one chaste kiss, a
fleeting dance and the knowledge that she is out of his reach in a convent. We
know she is beautiful, but beyond that, she is a blank. Onto this, the narrator
imposes (or rather we are encouraged for ourselves to impose) a great deal of
goodness and inaccessibility. The narrator makes clear early on the importance of
this last quality (“la femme réelle” should not be approached), and later implies
that the nun is one half of man’s feminine ideal (“Aimer une religieuse sous la
forme d’une actrice! … Il y a de quoi devenir fou!”). As well as this, even more
than Sylvie, she is linked to the Valois region, since “le sang des Valois coulait
dans ses veines”. This blood of course refers to the Valois aristocracy, but the fact
that they share a name with the region that our narrator holds in such affection
of the region itself. It as though he is lusting after the land of his childhood in the
form of a woman, but since the character of the woman is so deeply connected to
the region, the region itself also becomes an object of lust. The narrator’s primary
obsession is with a specific time and place – his past in the Valois. The three
women in the text are merely expressions of this past (even Aurélie, who reminds
him of Adrienne).
youth and the three women, then it is only because the nature of these
that his obsession with the past is nothing new. Chapter VI contains a revealing
moment where the narrator and Sylvie put on her aunt’s wedding clothes,
transforming himself “en marié de l’autre siècle”. It is as though even in his youth
in what was then his present, condemned from childhood to fetishize the past. He
the entire nouvelle – an image of the narrator’s youth, cruel and beguiling.
Translator’s Note
Distinguished, but not unimprovable, since the various translations made over the
past century or so seem to me to fall either into the trap of being too formal and
My own modest attempt tries to strike a balance between these two extremes, as
far as possible using clear, modern English, but avoiding the glaring neologisms
language is a taxing one. Page’s 1896 translation contains phrases such as, “Thus
it chanced that on quitting the theatre” or “They bade me kiss her”, which sound
rather outdated, even mawkish, to modern ears - a quality which I do not believe
constructions.
line of argument. At the level of the sentence, this means deciding whether or not
8
Andrew Lang, Letters on literature (London: 1889)
9
Sylvie, trans. Lucie Page (Portland, Me: T.B. Mosher, 1896)
10
Sylvie, trans. Richard Sieburth (London: Syrens, 1995)
11
Aurélia followed by Sylvie, trans. Kendall Lappin (Santa Maria, CA: Asylum Arts, 1993)
12
Selected Writings of Gérard de Nerval, trans. Geoffrey Wagner, (London: Panther Books, 1968)
to follow the order of clauses in the original. This is what I have tried to do
wherever practicable, since changing this order invariably changes which ideas
the author has emphasized. At the level of the paragraph, it is tempting to break
original, so I have always left this unaltered. In effect, this means maintaining the
English, stays as a semi-colon, and long sequences of clauses are never broken
up. The exceptions to this are the dash and the ellipsis, widespread in French
writing, but usually redundant in English. I have used these on a case by case
basis, for instance where Nerval is clearly implying a broken chain of thought.
Space does not allow for a detailed description or justification of every solution I
have proposed to the translation problems posed by the original. The title of the
French has been variously rendered as “A wasted night”, “Wasted night”, and “A
lost night”. None of the translators listed above8-12 opts for “Lost Night”, perhaps
out of a desire to avoid the obvious. Yet this seems to me to be the best option.
The absence of the article is more striking in French than in English, so to re-
introduce it seems artificial, and “Wasted night” does not fit with what follows.
Our narrator has wasted many nights at the theatre, but this particular night is
emphatically not one of them, since on coming across the advertisement for the
fête at Loisy, he is plunged into memories of his childhood, in turn bringing about
the events of the entire nouvelle. Ultimately, it is fruitless, but at this stage we
are not aware of this – in fact, it is the least wasted night our narrator has had
for some time. “Lost night” therefore seems to be the most apposite, since it
situates the night in question vaguely in the past, with the absence of article
adding to this lack of specificity, and as a consequence neatly sets up the text’s
technical point of view, this means constantly trying to choose the most
appropriate tense to use. His use of the imperfect is problematic and often
ambiguous. The translator must decide whether Nerval is referring to one action
different ways according to context, which gives some idea of the scale of the
task. The many temporal shifts also require careful handling. The narrator often
switches between reminiscence and action, his reflections described by both the
imperfect and the simple past, and his reactions to these by the simple past and
which tenses Nerval uses for events situated at completely different points within
approach, as faithful as possible to the text. The sudden shifts of tense can be
The final problem is a function of the content rather than the language. The
original is thick with both classical and historical references. Lappin, Sieburth and
Wagner use footnotes to explain some of these, and to add biographical detail.
The latter can be found in the introduction to this version, leaving the reader to
draw his own conclusions as to how relevant this is. My own personal belief is
that since Nerval does not specify which theatre he frequents, it is an imposition
for a translator to assert an actual location, even if this takes the form of a
footnote – this is not, after all, an autobiography, and to try to match every
episode with an event from the author’s own life is at best speculative. I also
Lappin, for instance, footnotes “Isis”, “Alexandria” and “Diana” (references which
I suspect would not be beyond a good A-level student), yet leaves many more
obscure references unexplained. In the end I have adopted the same strategy as
for biographical detail; Nerval chooses not to offer assistance to readers less well-
read than himself (among whom I freely place myself), and so I leave readers to
decide for themselves whether to follow every lead or not. A classical dictionary,
“decoding” allusion. Readers can easily find themselves adrift in the temporal
fluidity of this text; I would argue that the complexity of Nerval’s references
encounter, it is best just to allow oneself to be swept along by Nerval’s rich prose
I. Lost Night
I was leaving a theatre where every evening I would appear in the boxes
in a suitor’s costume. Sometimes the place was full, sometimes the place was
empty. Looking out over stalls filled with thirty or so hopeless amateurs, or boxes
indeed was being a part of a lively, trembling auditorium, crowned at every tier
the spectacle of the hall, that of the play was barely of greater interest - except
for the second or third scene of some dreary masterpiece, when a familiar
apparition would light up the empty space, giving life with a breath and a word to
I felt myself living in her, and she living for me alone. Her smile filled me with an
infinite goodness; the vibration of her voice, so sweet and yet powerfully
distinctive, made me quiver with joy and love. For me she possessed every
beautiful as the day when the footlights shone upon her from below, pale as the
night when the dimmed footlights left her illuminated more naturally from above
beneath the chandeliers’ rays, only her beauty gleaming in the shadow, like the
divine Hours carved out, with a star on each forehead, on the dark brown of the
frescos at Herculaneum.
For a whole year, I had not thought to discover who she really was; I was afraid
of disturbing the magic mirror which reflected her image to me - and at most I
had overheard certain comments concerning not the actress, but the woman. I
learnt as much about her as I might have learnt from rumours about the Princess
of Ilia or the Queen of Trabzon - one of my uncles who had lived through the
years before the Revolution, as one must in order to understand that time
properly, had warned me at an early age that actresses were not women, and
that nature had forgotten to give them a heart. He was speaking about actresses
from that bygone age no doubt; but he had told me so many tales of his illusions
faded favours, whilst giving me the full story and account, that I was used to
thinking badly of them all with no consideration for the way of things nowadays.
We were living through a strange era then, as is usually the case after revolutions
or the toppling of great monarchies. The heroic gallantry of the Fronde, the
elegant and ornate vice of the Regency, the scepticism and wild orgies of the
Directory were all no more; there was a combination of activity, hesitation and
mixed with a certain instinct for rebirth; a sense of being tired of past discords
and uncertain hopes – something like the age of Peregrinus and Apuleius. Worldly
man aspired to the rejuvenating bouquet of roses proffered by the fair Isis; the
eternally youthful and pure goddess would appear to us at night, and shamed us
for the wasted hours of our days. And yet for us it was not an ambitious age, and
the greedy scramble for rank and honour taking place at the time only distanced
us from possible spheres of activity. The only refuge left to us was the poets’
ivory tower, which we climbed ever higher to escape the mob. Guided to such
heights by our masters, we breathed at last the pure air of solitude, we drank
oblivion from the golden cup of legends, we were drunk on poetry and love. Love
– alas! – of vague shapes, of shades of pink and blue, of metaphysical phantoms!
Seen at close quarters, actual woman appalled us in our naivety; she had to be a
There were those among us who nevertheless held these platonic paradoxes in
low esteem, and through our renewed dreams of Alexandria would sometimes
brandish the torch of the underground gods, lighting up the shadows for a
moment with their trail of stars. And so it was that, on leaving the theatre with
the bitter sadness that a faded dream leaves behind, I gladly sought out the
society of a club who used to dine together in great numbers, and where all
stormy, and, at times, sublime individuals – such as are always found in periods
of reform or decadence, and whose arguments ascended to such a level that the
most timid among us would sometimes go to the windows to see whether the
Huns, the Turkmen or the Cossacks were finally coming to cut short the debates
“Drinking and making love, now that’s wisdom!” This was the sole opinion of the
youngest there. One of this group said to me, “I’ve been seeing you for a while in
the same theatre, every time that I go. Which one do you come for?”
Which one…? It did not seem possible that one could go for another. But I
“Well!” answered my friend with indulgence, “over there is the lucky fellow who
has just escorted her here, and, faithful to the rules of our club, might not be
young man, properly dressed, with a pale and nervous face, acceptable manners
and eyes bearing the stamp of melancholy and sweetness. He was throwing coins
onto a whist table and losing with indifference. “Why should it matter to me,” said
I, “him or any other? There was bound to me one, and he seems worthy of being
chosen.”
“And you?”
newspaper in order, I believe, to see how the stock exchange was faring. In the
Although overlooked for some time, there had been a rumour that they were
administration. The funds were already valued quite highly; I found myself rich
again.
This change of circumstances brought about one thought alone, namely that the
long beloved woman was mine if I so wanted. I was within touching distance of
my ideal. Surely this was another illusion, a mocking printing error? But the other
papers were saying the same thing. The sum I had earned stood before me like
the golden statue of Moloch. “What would the young man I saw a moment ago
say,” I thought, “if I went to take his place beside the woman he has left alone?”
No! That is not the way, killing love with gold at my age: I will not be a corrupter.
Besides, such an idea belongs to another time. And how do I know this woman
would be so mercenary? My eyes wandered vaguely across the paper I was still
holding, and I read the following two lines: “Country Flower Fair. – Tomorrow, the
archers of Senlis must return the bouquet to the archers of Loisy.” At these
memory of the countryside, a distant echo of the naïve holidays of youth. The
horn and drum would sound from afar in the little villages and in the woods; the
girls would weave garlands and, singing all the while, gathered bouquets bound
up with ribbons. A heavy cart, pulled by bullocks, received these gifts along their
way, and we, children of those parts, we made up the procession with our bows
and arrows, calling ourselves knights - without realizing that we were simply
repeating from age to age a druidic rite surviving both monarchies and new
religions.
II. Adrienne
my youth was playing out in my memory. This state, where the mind is still able
to resist the strange combinations of dream, often allows one to see the most
I was picturing a castle from the time of Henri IV with its pointed roofs covered
with slate and a reddish front with corners indented by yellowing stones, a large
green square framed by elms and linden trees, whose foliage the setting sun
pierced with its burning shafts. Young girls were dancing in a round on the lawn
singing old songs passed down to them by their mothers, and in French so
naturally pure that one had a strong sense of being alive in that ancient Valois
those days still a young girl from the neighbouring hamlet, so lively and so fresh-
faced, with her dark eyes, her even profile and lightly sun-kissed skin…! I loved
only her, I had eyes for no other – until then! I had hardly noticed, in the circle
where we were dancing, a tall, beautiful blonde who went by the name of
Adrienne. All at once, according to the steps of the dance, Adrienne was alone
with me in the middle of the round. We were both the same height. Someone told
us to kiss, and the dance and the chorus whirled more vividly than ever. As I
gave her that kiss, I could not stop myself from squeezing her hand. The long,
golden rings of her hair brushed against my cheeks. From that moment, an
unknown disquiet took hold of me. – The lady had to sing in order to return to the
dance. We sat around her, and straight away, in a sweet, penetrating, yet slightly
husky voice, typical of girls from that misty country, she sang one of those
ancient ballads full of melancholy and love which always describe the misfortunes
The melody of each verse ended with those quavering trills which young voices
can perform so well, imitating the shaking voice of a grandmother with tremulous
modulations.
While she was singing, shadows were falling from the lofty trees, and the
emerging moonlight was shining on her only, alone in the middle of our transfixed
circle. She finished her song, and no one dared to break the silence. The lawn
was covered with faint, condensed vapour, its white droplets unfurling on each
to the castle’s parterre, where laurel trees had been planted in large earthenware
vases decorated with cameos. I brought back two branches, braided into a
garland and tied up with ribbon. I placed this ornament on Adrienne’s head, its
glossy leaves standing out against her blonde hair lit by the moon’s pale rays.
She looked like Dante’s Beatrice, smiling on the poet wandering by the border of
Adrienne stood up. Unfolding her slender form, she gave a graceful wave, and ran
back to the castle. She was, we were told, the granddaughter of someone
descended from a family allied to the ancient kings of France; the blood of the
Valois flowed through her veins. For this holiday, she had been allowed to join our
revels; we were not to see her again, since the following day she returned to the
When I went back to Sylvie, I saw that she was crying. The garland given to the
beautiful singer by my hand was the cause of her tears. I offered to go and cut
another, but she replied that she, undeserving, would rather I did not. I tried in
vain to defend myself, but she did not utter a single word as I escorted her to her
parents’ home.
carried with me the double image of a blossoming friendship sadly broken - and
The figure of Adrienne alone remained triumphant - a mirage of glory and beauty,
softening or sharing the hours of harsh studies. During the holidays of the
following year, I learnt that the family of this half-glimpsed beauty had decided
III. Resolution
Everything became clear to me through this half-dreamed memory. This vague
and hopeless love for a woman of the theatre which took hold of me every night
at the time of the show, only releasing me with the onset of sleep, had taken root
in my memory of Adrienne, flower of the night blooming by the pale light of the
moon, blond and rosy phantom gliding across the lush grass half-bathed in dew.
From that moment, the resemblance to that long-forgotten face took shape with
striking clarity; it was a rough drawing, faded by the years, becoming a painting,
like those sketches by the old masters which one admires in a museum, before
To be in love with a nun under the guise of an actress…! and if they should be the
same! – The stuff of madness! a fatal impulse where the unknown draws you in
like the will-o’-the-wisp hovering above rushes by a stagnant pool… Let us try to
return to reality.
And Sylvie, of whom I had once been so fond, why had I forgotten her for three
years? She was really a very pretty girl, and the most beautiful in Loisy!
She is real, and no doubt good and pure of heart. I see her window where the
vine embraces the rose, the cage of songbirds hanging on the left; I hear the
By a rushing brooklet…
She is still waiting for me… Who would have married her? She is so poor!
In her village and those which surround it, good country folk in smocks, with
For three years, I have squandered the modest living he left me which could have
lasted a lifetime. With Sylvie, I would have saved it. Chance is giving part of it
What is she doing at this hour? Sleeping… No, she is not sleeping; today is the
festival of the bow, the only day in the year where the dancing lasts all night. She
is at the festival…
Shining with a newly-restored gleam among all the splendid bric-a-brac, which at
apartment from days gone by, was one of those Renaissance tortoise-shell clocks,
whose dome, mounted with the figure of Father Time, is supported by Medici-
style caryatids, who in turn rest on half-rearing horses. The classical Diana,
leaning on her hart, is in bas-relief beneath the face, where enamel numbers
sprawl on an engraved background. The action, no doubt excellent, had not been
wound for two hundred years. It had not been to tell the time that I bought this
clock in Touraine.
I went down to the concierge. His cuckoo-clock was showing one o’clock in the
morning. In four hours, I said to myself, I can be at the ball in Loisy. There were
still five or six hansom cabs on the square of the Palais-Royal waiting for the
regulars from the gambling dens or clubs there: “To Loisy!” I said to the nearest.
“I’ll take you to the mail-coach,” said the driver, less concerned than I.
What a miserable road, at night, that Flanders road, which only becomes
beautiful on reaching the forest section! Always those two lines of monotonous
trees scowling vague shapes; beyond, squares of vegetation and ploughed earth,
hemmed in on the left by the bluish hills of Montmorency, Ecouen, and Luzarches.
There is Gonesse, the ordinary little town filled with memories of the Ligue and
the Fronde…
Past Louvres there is a road bordered by apple trees whose flowers I have seen
so many times bursting into the night like stars from the earth: it was the
shortest way to reach the hamlets. While the coach ascends the little hills, let us
reconstruct the memories of the time when I would come here so often.
Bibliography
Gérard de Nerval, Les Filles du Feu, ed. Jaques Bony (Paris: GF Flammarion,
1994)
Aurélia followed by Sylvie, trans. Kendall Lappin (Santa Maria, CA: Asylum Arts,
1993)
Books, 1968)
Dictionaries:
Gérard de Nerval, Norma Rinsler (University of London: The Athlone Press, 1973)
Les Filles du Feu, Les Chimères, Aurélia, ed. François-Charles Gaudard (Paris:
ellipses, 1997)
Internet resources :
Nerval)
Literature)