Lamennais (Féli)

Use in the book

Lamennais reaches the reader through different scales of presentation. He is first a source of learning and piety; later he is a familiar voice in the garden, noticing insect-damaged leaves, proposing a grassy burial place, and transforming the striking clock into an exhortation to constancy. The famous image of a person stretched between finite and infinite worlds is reported speech attributed to him. It belongs within a relationship, rather than appearing as an unassigned maxim of Guérin’s own. Departure reveals the depth of attachment: Guérin says that nine months of guidance have left a wound he had not perceived while daily life continued. Later political and religious adversity is represented as the suffering of a misunderstood benefactor. The journal records the disciple’s grief and conviction; it does not provide an impartial documentary history of the controversy. Even at Le Val, collecting firewood recalls Féli’s enthusiasm for the same work. His memory thus inhabits bodily habits and small pleasures as well as declarations of spiritual authority.

Places to read

1. 24 March 1833 · ¶1The editor identifies Féli; the wished-for grassy grave makes his weariness intimate and concrete.
2. 9 May 1833 · ¶4The finite/infinite image is explicitly something Féli said to the company.
3. 1 October 1833 · ¶3Separation after nine months turns habitual closeness into newly felt loss.
4. 2 January 1834 · ¶3Guérin records news of defeat through the language of devotion, injustice, and personal recollection.

Translation in this edition

The damaged-manuscript note after the January 2 passage reports erased text and removed leaves, then conjectures that Guérin removed them. Neither the missing wording nor the conjecture can be treated as Guérin’s statement.