Diotimos Library · Journals, Notebooks & Fragments Collection · Bilingual Edition
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Facing Pages · Branch 61 of 121
1833 · October 14, 1833
French
p. 121Le 14.
Tandis que je vais poursuivant un essaim de vaines pensées comme un homme qui n’a pas à s’inquiéter de plus, tout mon avenir se renverse. On m’a dit qu’il fallait m’en retourner au monde. Chose bizarre! je me suis surpris cent fois à regretter la vie étrange qu’on y mène, et aujourd’hui que la solitude et la retraite m’ont donné congé, le monde me fait horreur. Oh ! c’est que ma place était bien ici, et, malgré mes caprices et mes boutades mondaines, j’y tenais par le fond de l’âme. Je commençais à voir clair dans ma destinée, et voilà que je recommence à n’y plus rien comprendre. Mon Dieu ! pourtant, c’est bien cruel. Que voulez-vous donc faire de moi parmi les hommes? Que deviendrai-je dans ce tourbillon, moi, la plus faible des créatures ? Oh ! je reconnais bien là mon épreuve. Je croyais être assez convaincu de mon impuissance, de ma débilité, de la constitution maladive et incomplète de mon organisation morale; hélas ! il paraît que je ne suis pas assez persuadé, puisque je suis renvoyé au grand destructeur de toute joie intérieure, de toute noble énergie, de toute naïve espérance, le monde.
The Green Notebook: 1833
p. 122October 14, 1833
While I go on pursuing a swarm of vain thoughts like a man with nothing more to worry about, my whole future is overturned. I have been told I must return to the world. Strange thing! A hundred times I have caught myself longing for the curious life one leads there, and today, when solitude and retreat have dismissed me, the world fills me with horror. Oh, it is because my place was truly here, and despite my whims and worldly sallies, I was attached to it in the depths of my soul. I was beginning to see my destiny clearly, and now I begin once more to understand nothing of it. My God! Yet it is very cruel. What, then, do you wish to make of me among men? What shall become of me in that whirlpool, I, the weakest of creatures? Oh, I recognize my trial there. I thought I was sufficiently convinced of my powerlessness, my weakness, the sickly and incomplete constitution of my moral being; alas, it seems I am not sufficiently persuaded, since I am sent back to the great destroyer of all inward joy, all noble energy, all innocent hope, the world.
Socrates
Reading The Green Notebook · 1833 · October 14, 1833
Ask about a concept, passage, contradiction, or connection.
Socrates will begin with this book and its sources.About This Reading Edition
Maurice de Guérin’s journal moves between close attention to nature, friendship, faith, and the inward demands of poetry. This bilingual edition presents the complete Journal section of the 1864 printing, with a separate appendix of earlier printed passages from 1861.
Historical Text and Translation
The French follows G. S. Trébutien’s sixth edition of Journal, lettres et poèmes (Paris: Didier et Cie, 1864), pages 3–126. Its 116 dated entries run from July 1832 to October 1835. Five earlier passages from Reliquiae (1861) appear separately in the appendix. Completeness refers to the printed Journal, rather than the autograph notebook; the following letters and poems are outside this edition.
About Diotimos Editions
Diotimos Editions prepared this independent English translation directly from the French, preserving Guérin’s imagery, repetitions, intimate voice, and original paragraph divisions. French and English remain aligned for comparison. Translator’s notes clarify words, quotations, and allusions, while historical editor notes retain their separate attribution. The Essential setting keeps explanations useful to reading; All also includes the note on the edition’s typographic treatment.
Rights
The historical French printings are in the public domain in the United States. The independent English translation and new editorial notes are © 2026 Diotimos Editions. The linked facsimiles identify the printed witnesses used for this edition. Historical annotations and editorial conjectures remain attributed to their source editors, and the earlier variant passages are presented separately from the later Journal text.