Octave Mirbeau’s scathing 1900 critique of Vielé-Griffin’s The Ride of Yeldis – a masterclass in literary demolition. The French satirist dismantles the celebrated symbolist poem with biting wit, questioning what passes for poetry in the free verse movement.
In La Plume, M. Edmond Pilon — with an ironic benevolence for which I thank him — takes me severely to task for having, in these very pages, mistreated M. Vielé-Griffin, “a great, pure and noble poet”. Among the works of this pure, noble and great poet, M. Edmond Pilon cites with stirring admiration The Ride of Yeldis, a masterpiece — the masterpiece!… Ah! I have long been familiar with this opinion. It’s current among a circle of very young poets. And here is exactly how it goes. When they are seventeen, poets say: “The great poet Vielé-Griffin!” At nineteen, they still say: “The poet Vielé-Griffin”. At twenty, they say merely “Vielé-Griffin”. At twenty-one, they say nothing at all and move on to someone else. M. Edmond Pilon has preserved the youthful bloom of his enthusiasm. I don’t blame him for it, since he derives such joy from it… But is that sufficient reason to assert, as he has just done, that I understand nothing of poetry and that free verse is utterly closed to me? Quite right, if M. Edmond Pilon wishes to limit my incompetence to the poetry and free verse of M. Vielé-Griffin. It’s perfectly true that I refuse to take for free verse — or even enslaved prose — the verses of M. Vielé-Griffin. However free it may be, a verse must express something: an idea, an image, a sensation, a rhythm. Now, I defy M. Edmond Pilon to prove to us that M. Vielé-Griffin’s verses express anything other than a mystification which, really, has gone on too long.
This, moreover, is easy to demonstrate — not through theories and arguments where we talk past each other and which never prove anything — but through M. Vielé-Griffin himself.
So here we have this Ride of Yeldis, which is a masterpiece, indeed the masterpiece of M. Vielé-Griffin. Let’s read it together, shall we?
⁂
The plot of this poem is exceedingly vague and strangely childish. One never knows exactly what Yeldis was, in what country or in what era she lived… She lived in turrets that covered her with their shadow and which:
Tapered organ-like against the sky, Those June evenings, with voices numberless.
All we know with any precision is that: The land was bountiful and rich in wines, Gay with the sun that mirrors in the sea, And the port Was alive both morn and eve, With the motley crowd. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ships departed towards all skies — With their bright sails, as if laughing...
As for Yeldis, we haven’t many details about her person. “She was royal,” says M. Vielé-Griffin, and besides:
Yeldis would greet us, from the threshold, Sometimes, And sometimes we would wait, panting, Seated at the porch shadowed with mourning, To hear her sing, like a springtime.
There were five of them who came, as pilgrims, to hear her sing like a springtime: Luke, Martial, Claude, Philarque and M. Vielé-Griffin.
And the old man, her father or her spouse, Extended his hands in good welcome To all those she illumined with a smile...
And here is how they came to know this old man, father or spouse:
The old man came to exchange foreign gold, Some morning; We knew him thus... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . He walked calm through the tumult of the surging Quays, at the lookout's watchful cry Towards the jetties. And as he told us of his dwelling, Outside the city, on the hill of oaks, We went to bring him younger coins...
And there you have the old man, spouse or father, dying one spring:
As one dies at break of day, As if in dream (they say) with words of love...
And that very evening of this death, speaking of Yeldis who had followed, “all dawn-like”, the funeral of her father or spouse, Philarque says to M. Vielé-Griffin:
Philarque said to me that night — alone, that night — Philarque said: "I love her" and I said: "Philarque, we all love her" and, saying this, smiled, And he gazed ahead, unseeing, We knew she was leaving that night...
All five of them — Luke and Martial and Claude and Philarque and M. Vielé-Griffin — loved Yeldis. They decided, in a brief council, that they would follow her:
League after league and step by step, By false road and true road, Until death...
And here is this brief council:
Martial wished to speak, but Luke, the clever, Before he'd spoken, said: "Here I am". — "And I!" said Claude; and all of us said: "I!" — Thus it was.
Here are inscribed, like medallions, the portraits of the five friends. First Philarque:
He knew the secret of all chances, He had read the books of the learned. He spoke of oases where water is God-given...
Then Luke:
He seemed an adolescent emerging from childhood. His mother was Venetian; he loved to drink...
As for Martial:
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . He walked alone, among other men. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Old thoughts, grey as mist Dreamed within him, who knows?... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . And killed for an affront, or with the sword;
For Claude:
Claude was pale, with a smile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . He carried his viol on his shoulder And played, playfully, his airs So clear With their intoned dreams, Which mingled so well with our hearts' reveries...
One sees at once what sort of people we are dealing with! M. Vielé-Griffin is quite sparing with details about himself. He says, however:
I loved her like life, and all joy, Feeling myself born of her like a son For some endless day whose dawn breaks [sic].
And they set off, following Yeldis. Terrible rides, ardent, endless. Plains, forests, seas, cities and suburbs, mountains and hills — they cross, traverse, scale everything. Sometimes, in the evening, they halt:
Weary halts, gay...
And sometimes Yeldis, at the foot of a beech tree, speaks words “beautiful enough to die for”. But M. Vielé-Griffin takes care not to repeat these words… Finally, Philarque and Luke, too weary, desert:
Philarque and Luke left the road And went without farewells Towards the western sun, As if in rout...
One evening as they walked, Claude, Martial and M. Vielé-Griffin, “speaking of leaves without number”:
Yeldis spoke to us: And, in the night, breathless and starless, Alone of her, her voice lived — So it seemed to us — And, despite her beautiful eyes, her hair, Her slender grace that day unveils And all the beloved charm of her attire, Voice in the night, thus she seemed more beautiful (Does one not close one's eyes, hearing an air? Thinking, does one not close one's eyes to see clear?)
M. Vielé-Griffin, once again, doesn’t report Yeldis’s words. He summarises them thus:
One might believe he dreamed, who heard her: She spoke to us beautiful words, such That each word expanded with dream and wings And one dared not believe all, and yet believed...
And the ride resumes, more ardent and more terrible:
Our horses trampled filthy patriarchs That a vow prostrated beneath our march... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Great walnut trees sometimes bordered the road, And passing in their shadow, we were cold And we took up the trot Without a word...
And Claude dies, “his head against her dress”. They bury him:
Near a spring that laughed like him...
M. Vielé-Griffin remains calm, and here is what he says:
The great repose of things accomplished Drifted on slow breeze over the wheat With the trembling of panoplies...
Finally, the denouement approaches:
Martial, quite pale (I see him still: We had halted beneath a sycamore, Near a voiceless stream where I drank — Knees to earth and face to face With myself and so close that I drank From between my own lips that drank And I straightened up to hear him: His voice was firm with sure boldness Trembling, a little, as if he feared...) Martial said, as one speaks a poem — "Upon my soul, I love you, And wish to die, if it please you that I die. But tell me the goal!..."
Ah! yes! that’s what Yeldis ought to say… But she says nothing, she smiles and points to the road. Then Martial:
Walked towards her and took her hand, Virile and frank. She bent her head like a child And, suddenly, beautiful with all his youth And his will, and his fine love, Without detour, He took her without a cry and without a gesture And without a word, Leapt upright in his stirrups And reared his horse towards a gallop...
And they depart, the two of them, “in the twilight, towards tomorrow”, leaving M. Vielé-Griffin astonished and solitary on the road… But M. Vielé-Griffin is happy, all the same… He says:
I'm not ashamed, thinking of it, of myself, I haven't one regret for this poem: I know that for having followed her Even beneath the chestnut trees, I know life;
M. Vielé-Griffin knows life. And what is life for M. Vielé-Griffin?
For me, all shadow is clear and the sun Sings in the gold of wheat and bees.
⁂
Such is this masterpiece, such is the masterpiece of M. Vielé-Griffin!… Well then, I ask, in all good faith, of M. Edmond Pilon, what on earth does all this mean?… What is this language? Is it American patois? Is it pidgin? What is it? Ah! I should like to know!
1900.
This is one of 50+ rare French literary texts translated into English for the first time on this site.
Léon Hennique Novel 