Travel Reference
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tension. Je commençai aussi à comprendre que si la nature s'était envelop-
pée d'un tel charme, on le devait un peu à cette civilisation où j'avais
rencontré des hommes qui m'avaient aidé à améliorer mon existence. Je
compris aussi qu'une partie de moi-même ne pouvait vivre sans l'autre,
son contraire. [128; Then I understood that nothing would change and that
I was prey to two contradictory forces that dominated me intermittently
and alternately. I thus decided to go along with it as long as I could endure
this tension. I also began to understand that if nature was enveloped in
such charm, it was partly due to this civilization where I had encountered
men who had helped me better my existence. I further understood that
one part of me could not live without the other, its opposite.]
In the penultimate chapter, Pierre himself senses he is nearing his elu-
sive goal, which is to understand the place of beauty in human existence.
In short, he realizes that beauty, attained through solitude, is ultimately
a matter of solidarity with others, 23 and Pierre now feels compelled to
seek his universal identity, his profound link to humanity.
To define the human condition, Pierre must now go beyond his per-
sonal memories and probe the very depths of his soul, which, as in the
case of his earlier discoveries of the past, he must do through art. Like
Rembrandt before him (120), Pierre now attempts in the final chapter to
achieve self-understanding through a self-portrait, interpreted by his
friend Stanislas:
Stanislas voyait un visage bizarrement construit ... Sur le sommet de la tête
se devinaient de curieuses protubérances, une suggestion de bois de cerf
peut-être, que prolongeait comme un mouvement de feuillages ou d'om-
bres ... Qu'avait donc voulu suggérer Pierre? Quelle alliance étroite de
l'âme avec les forces primitives? Ou la haute plainte d'une créature en qui
se fût fondue l'angoisse de tuer et d'être tuée? Le portrait attirait comme
vers une insolite région de la connaissance dont les arbres, avec leurs som-
bres entrelacements, donnaient quelque idée. Son attrait était dans cette
sorte de fascination qu'il exerçait, au rebours de la clarté, vers les torturan-
tes énigmes de l'être. [164-5; Stanislas saw an oddly fashioned counte-
nance … On the top of the head there was a hint of curious protuberances,
a suggestion of antlers, perhaps, given extension as though by a move-
ment of foliage or shadows … What, then, had Pierre tried to suggest?
What close alliance of the soul to all that is primitive? Or was this not the
high-pitched lament in which are commingled the anguish of killing and
of being killed? The portrait drew you as though into some unfrequented
 
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