Urien's Voyage Read Free Page A

would have killed us, I believe. They were so dense that we could see the aromatic dust spiraling upward.
    We made our way to the other shore; startled pink flamingos and ibises took flight. We sat down on a coral rock; wind from the sea wafted the perfumes away from us.
    The island must not have been very thick, for beneath it, in the deep sea, under the shadow that it cast, we could again see the light. And we thought that each such island must have become detached, like a ripened fruit from its stem; and when they were no longer held fast to the natal rock by anything, then, like insincere actions, they were at the mercy of the waves, borne along by every current.
    On the fifth day, to our regret, we lost sight of them.
    As soon as the sun had set, we bathed in water that was pink and green; and, since it reflected the sky, it soon became reddish brown. The warm, pacific billows were soft but penetrating. The oarsmen were awaiting us. We climbed back into the boat just as the moon was rising; there was a slight breeze; tacking our sails, we forced the boat into the wind. And sometimes we saw clouds, mauve-colored still, and sometimes the moon. In the silver wake that it left on the calm sea, the oars dug eddies of light; before us, in the wake of the moon, the Orion moved along, mysterious. The moon appeared first behind a mast, then alone—then by morning it had again fallen into the sea. *
    * “My kingdom is not of this world,” is the Gospel statement that most impressed Gide. He could never manage to believe completely in the real world which always seemed “somewhat fantastic” to him, nor in eternal life. He did believe “in another facet of this life, which escapes our senses.”
    * Two previous works ( Narcissus and André Walter ) reveal Gide’s views on art and the relation of art to the two other poles which alternately attracted and repelled him—sexuality and religion. In the present work he effectively combines the three elements deemed essential for any work of art—sensuality, sexuality and pride.
    * According to the Symbolists a man is born to make manifest an Idea. Gide wanted to represent, to manifest to others his truth which was his inmost self. His task was complicated by his inability to conciliate morality with sincerity in his own life.
    * Gide’s early works, written under the influence of the Symbolist movement, reflect not only his acute sensitivity but his belief in the supremacy of art over other means of cognition or expression. The Symbolists stressed the fusion of sensations and the use of concrete phenomena to suggest Ideas. From his earliest writings we learn that Gide in his solitary walks felt that “The landscape was but a projected emanation of myself … I created it step by step as I became aware of its harmonies … and I marveled as I walked through my dream-garden.”

III
    On the seventh day we came upon a sandy shore interrupted by arid dunes. Gabiler, Agloval, Paride and Morgain went ashore; they kept us waiting for twenty hours; they had taken leave of us around midday, and we saw them returning the following morning, running and gesticulating. When they were quite near, Paride shouted to us:
    â€œLet’s go,” he said. “There are sirens on the island and we have seen them.”
    After they had caught their breath, while the Orion was sailing at full speed, Morgain related:
    â€œWe had walked all day among the blue thistles on the shifting dunes. We had walked all day without seeing anything but the hills that loomed before us, their crests wavering in the wind; our feet were burned by the sand, and the flashing dry air parched our lips and made our eyes smart. (Who can describe your pomp and plenitude, suns of the East, suns of the South on these sands!) When evening came, having reached the foot of a high hill, we felt so tired.… We slept in the sand, without even waiting until the sun had