Three short works

Three short works

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Three short works, by Gustave
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Title: Three short works The Dance of Death, The Legend of Saint
Julian the Hospitaller, A Simple Soul.
Author: Gustave Flaubert
Release Date: December 14, 2003 [EBook #10458]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO Latin-1
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THREE SHORT WORKS
by
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT

The Dance of Death The Legend of Saint-Julian the Hospitaller A
Simple Soul

THE DANCE OF DEATH
(1838)
* * * * *
"Many words for few things!" "Death ends all; judgment comes to all."
* * * * *
[This work may be called a prose poem. It is impregnated with the
spirit of romanticism, which at the time of writing had a temporary but
powerful hold on the mind of Gustave Flaubert.]
* * * * *
DEATH SPEAKS
At night, in winter, when the snow-flakes fall slowly from heaven like
great white tears, I raise my voice; its resonance thrills the cypress trees
and makes them bud anew.
I pause an instant in my swift course over earth; throw myself down
among cold tombs; and, while dark-plumaged birds rise suddenly in
terror from my side, while the dead slumber peacefully, while cypress
branches droop low o'er my head, while all around me weeps or lies in
deep repose, my burning eyes rest on the great white clouds, gigantic
winding-sheets, unrolling their slow length across the face of heaven.
How many nights, and years, and ages have I journeyed thus! A
witness of the universal birth and of a like decay; Innumerable are the
generations I have garnered with my scythe. Like God, I am eternal!
The nurse of Earth, I cradle it each night upon a bed both soft and
warm. The same recurring feasts; the same unending toil! Each

morning I depart, each evening I return, bearing within my mantle's
ample folds all that my scythe has gathered. And then I scatter them to
the four winds of Heaven!
* * * * *
When the high billows run, when the heavens weep, and shrieking
winds lash ocean into madness, then in the turmoil and the tumult do I
fling myself upon the surging waves, and lo! the tempest softly cradles
me, as in her hammock sways a queen. The foaming waters cool my
weary feet, burning from bathing in the falling tears of countless
generations that have clung to them in vain endeavour to arrest my
steps.
Then, when the storm has ceased, after its roar has calmed me like a
lullaby, I bow my head: the hurricane, raging in fury but a moment
earlier dies instantly. No longer does it live, but neither do the men, the
ships, the navies that lately sailed upon the bosom of the waters.
'Mid all that I have seen and known,--peoples and thrones, loves,
glories, sorrows, virtues--what have I ever loved? Nothing--except the
mantling shroud that covers me!
My horse! ah, yes! my horse! I love thee too! How thou rushest o'er the
world! thy hoofs of steel resounding on the heads bruised by thy
speeding feet. Thy tail is straight and crisp, thine eyes dart flames, the
mane upon thy neck flies in the wind, as on we dash upon our
maddened course. Never art thou weary! Never do we rest! Never do
we sleep! Thy neighing portends war; thy smoking nostrils spread a
pestilence that, mist-like, hovers over earth. Where'er my arrows fly,
thou overturnest pyramids and empires, trampling crowns beneath thy
hoofs; All men respect thee; nay, adore thee! To invoke thy favour,
popes offer thee their triple crowns, and kings their sceptres; peoples,
their secret sorrows; poets, their renown. All cringe and kneel before
thee, yet thou rushest on over their prostrate forms.
Ah, noble steed! Sole gift from heaven! Thy tendons are of iron, thy
head is of bronze. Thou canst pursue thy course for centuries as swiftly

as if borne up by eagle's wings; and when, once in a thousand years,
resistless hunger comes, thy food is human flesh, thy drink, men's tears.
My steed! I love thee as Pale Death alone can love!
* * * * *
Ah! I have lived so long! How many things I know! How many
mysteries of the universe are shut within my breast!
Sometimes, after I have hurled a myriad of darts, and, after coursing
o'er the world on my pale horse, have