These passages follow the earlier printed wording in Reliquiae, volume I (1861), pp. 83–99. The first passage includes only the ending of the entry of December 7, 1833. The two versions remain distinct. “See the Appendix” in note S14 refers to the appendix of the 1861 volume.

[End of the entry of December 7, 1833]

And see how full of goodness Providence is toward me. For fear that the sudden passage from the gentle, temperate air of religious and solitary life to the world’s torrid zone should try my soul too severely, she led me, on leaving the holy refuge, into a house raised upon the borders of the two regions, where, though one is not in solitude, one does not yet belong to the world; a house whose windows open on one side upon the plain where the tumult of men stirs, and on the other upon the wilderness where God’s servants sing; on one side upon the Ocean, on the other upon the woods, and this figure is a reality, for it is built beside the sea. I wish to set down here the history of the stay I shall make there, for the days passing here are full of happiness, and I know that in the future I shall often turn back to reread past happiness. A pious man and poet, a woman whose soul fits his so well that one might call them a single soul, but divided in two; a child called Marie, like her mother, who lets the first rays of her love and intelligence shine through childhood’s white cloud like a star; a simple life in an ancient house, the Ocean coming morning and evening to bring us its harmonies; finally, a traveler descending from Carmel to make his way to Babylon, who has laid his staff and sandals at the door to sit at the hospitable table: there is material for a biblical poem, if I knew how to write things as I know how to feel them.

December 8, 1833

Yesterday the west wind blew furiously. I saw the Ocean troubled, but this disorder, however sublime, is far from equaling, to my mind, the spectacle of the serene, blue sea. But why say that one does not equal the other? Who could measure these two sublimities and say: the second surpasses the first? One must say only: my soul delights more in serenity than in storm. Yesterday there was an immense battle upon the watery plains. Seeing the waves leap, one would have thought them those innumerable cavalries of Tartars which gallop ceaselessly across the plains of Asia. The bay’s entrance is, as it were, defended by a chain of granite islets: one should have seen the breakers running to the assault and flinging themselves madly against these masses with frightful clamors; one should have seen them take a running start and compete to see who could best clear the reefs’ black heads. The boldest or most agile jumped to the other side with a great cry; the others, heavier or clumsier, broke against the rock, throwing out foam of a dazzling whiteness, and withdrew with a muffled, profound growl, like mastiffs driven back by a traveler’s stick. We witnessed these strange struggles from the top of a cliff where we had difficulty holding out against the wind’s fury. There we stood, our bodies leaning forward, our legs apart to widen our base and resist to greater advantage, both hands clamped to our hats to secure them upon our heads. The sea’s immense tumult, the noisy race of the waves, the no less rapid but silent race of the clouds, the seabirds floating in the sky and balancing their slender bodies between two curved wings of immoderate span, all that ensemble of wild, resounding harmonies which converged upon the souls of two beings five feet high, planted upon a cliff’s crest, shaken like leaves by the wind’s energy and scarcely more visible in that immensity than two birds perched upon a clod of earth: oh! It was something strange and admirable, one of those moments at once of sublime agitation and profound reverie when soul and nature rise to their full height face to face.

A few steps from us there was a group of children sheltered against a rock, tending a flock scattered upon the steep slope of the coast.

Put a ship in danger upon this scene of the sea, and everything changes: one sees only the ship. Happy is he who can contemplate nature deserted and solitary! Happy is he who can see her abandon herself to her terrible games without danger to any living being! Happy is he who watches, from the mountaintop, the lion leap and roar in the plain, with no traveler or gazelle passing by! Hippolyte, we had that happiness yesterday; we must thank heaven for it.

From the height we descended into a gorge which opens a sea refuge, such as the ancients knew how to describe, for a few waves which come to rest there while their mad brothers beat the reefs and struggle among themselves. Enormous masses of gray granite, streaked with white moss, lie scattered in disorder upon the hillside which hollowed itself out to open this cove. So strangely are they placed and inclined toward falling that one might think a giant had amused himself one day by rolling them from the top of the coast, and that they had stopped where they met an obstacle, some a few steps from their starting point, others halfway down; but these obstacles seem to have suspended rather than stopped their course, for they always appear ready to roll. The sound of winds and waves, rushing into this resonant hollow, gives forth the most beautiful harmonies there. We halted for quite a while, leaning on our sticks, full of wonder.

Not far away, two or three nights before, the following scene had taken place upon the reefs of the same coast. A poor woman of sixty went toward evening to fetch her sheep, which were grazing upon the cliff. The wind blew violently. The poor old woman, who, given her age, was doubtless not too sure on her feet, was easily toppled from the slope where she stood. She fell from a height of twenty to thirty feet and drove her head like a wedge between two rocks. Her family, seeing that she did not return, went in search of her; her cap, which had remained caught on a bush, told those poor people everything. They descended onto the fatal rock, but the sea, which was at high tide, barred their return by the shore, and the coast was too steep to climb with their sad burden. So they remained there through a dark and stormy night; they remained three hours upon the end of a reef, with that poor body stretched at their feet.

On returning to Le Val, we admired the situation of a little house inhabited by an old man. It leans against a knoll and turns its back upon the sea, like a true solitary who wishes only to hear the sound of things below. A small, well-planted garden, where a little of everything grows, extends in front as far as a little stream which falls into the sea. It is a little landscape such as Virgil loved.

In the evening, the Ocean’s voice was hoarse and muffled.

December 9, 1833

The moon still shone with a few stars when the bell called us to Mass. I particularly love that morning Mass said between the stars’ last glimmers and the sun’s first rays. The rest of the holy day passed in readings which nourish the soul, and smiles which open the heart. There are little lips here which know that little game so well that it is sheer delight to play it with them.

In the evening, Hippolyte and I set off along the coast. We wished to see what the Ocean is like at the end of a gray and calm December day. The mist veiled the distant waters from us, but gave the eye enough space to sense the infinite. We were stationed upon a point bearing a customs officer’s hut, and stood with our backs against the hut. On the right, a wood spread upon the coastal slope displayed in a pale gleam its bare and slender branches, which whistled lightly. On the left, far away, the tower of the Hébiens [the Ebihens] sometimes half disappeared as though drowned in shadow, sometimes reappeared with a faint gleam upon its brow when a furtive ray of twilight managed to outwit the clouds. The sea’s sound was calm and dreamy as on the finest days, only with something more plaintive. Our ear followed this sound as it unfolded along the whole length of the coast, and we drew breath again only after the breaker which had poured it out withdrew to make way for the next. I believe that extraordinary timbre of the sea’s song is born from the grave and profound voice rolled by the breaking wave and the thin, stony sound of the wave departing, lightly rustling the sand and shells. But why take this music apart? I shall never say anything worthwhile about it, for I understand nothing of analysis; let us return, then, to feeling. Shadow thickened around us and we did not think of leaving, for the sea’s harmony grew greater as everything fell silent upon earth and night unfolded its mysteries. Like those statues the ancients placed upon promontories, we remained motionless, as though fascinated and bound by the enchantment of the Ocean and night. We gave no sign of life except to lift our heads when we heard the whistling wings of wild ducks passing. The course of my wandering fortunes brought me to a solitary cape to dream away a whole autumn evening. There, for a few hours, all those inward sounds fell silent which have never been truly calm since the first storm rose within my breast. There all the gentle and heavenly melancholies entered my soul in a throng with the Ocean’s harmonies, and my soul wandered as in a paradise of reveries. Oh! When I have left Le Val and poured my farewell tears into the breast of your friendship, when I am in Paris, where there is neither valley nor Ocean, nor souls like yours, when I am there alone with my sorrows and my soul inclined to despair, oh! How many tears I shall shed in memory [of] our reveries, for happiness is the fine and gentle rain which penetrates the soul, but afterward gushes from it in springs of tears.