Jehan Sleepless

                     by Grayswandir

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       I should have put this candle out half an hour ago.  Never mind that I can afford the wax; wealth is no excuse for waste.  But there is Combeferre’s book on my table, lonely as anything, and somehow I can’t stand the dark just now.  It has the look of an old painting, that book, or perhaps of a dream, or something chiseled out of memory.  I can feel the texture of the leather binding with my fingertips, although it’s half the room away from me – I know it that well.  I can feel it almost as clearly as if it weren’t real at all.

       I wonder if poets are always so maudlin.  I’m on the point of writing a sonnet to that damnable heap of text.

       This isn’t the first time I’ve burned up a candle for the light to view illusions.  Sometimes even at the café, when a friend is absent or asleep – especially after dusk, when Paris is heavy with darkness and seems to sing the echoes of ghosts – my glance will light upon an article which belongs to him: Combeferre’s worn copy of The Republic, or Feuilly’s cap, or Joly’s rumpled handkerchief...  Sometimes, when I see one of these, for just an instant I am impressed with the immortality – or at least the longevity – of such trifles, in contrast to the all-too-urgent mortality of their possessors.  I will suddenly see Combeferre’s old book as if from beyond his grave, and that stack of bound up papers will become at once terribly sentimental and fearfully meaningless.  In the same moment, that book is Combeferre himself, the very essence of him, as well as a sobering reminder that, like everyone, he sprang from dust, and shall thence return ere long.  Indeed, not infrequently I glance about a deserted room and feel it haunted by the shadows of men who are yet alive.  There is a poetry about this that draws me, but I am also repulsed by it, and at times I actually shiver in that strange, transparent cold. 

       I am not afraid to die – that isn’t it.  Perhaps I’m even more afraid of living than of dying, for living is more painful.  It tears my heart to see how separate our souls are here: how I look into a friend’s eyes and see nothing but reflections.  I want him to shoot himself into me through his eyes; I want my whole being to feel his presence there, to understand him, to become a part of him...  I want to believe in promises, and I want every handshake to swear by all the gods.  I love humanity despite its baseness, despite its million demons and deceits.  I would give anything that other men might see themselves as I see them, pulled here and there by contradictions and marred with mistakes and misfortunes, but beautiful beneath it all.  I would give anything to once see Grantaire smile, and mean it – or to see Enjolras smile at all.

       It would hurt me less to watch their specters dance about me, if I thought that they were happy.

       Sometimes I wish I did not feel so keenly.  My every waking thought catches my soul on fire, and even the words of strangers lodge themselves one after another into my heart, like bitter arrows.  I am overcome with sadness and longing and regret and compassion and hope all in an instant – in every instant – for no reason whatsoever. 

       In truth, though, I appreciate my suffering, such as it is.  I don’t pity myself for it, because I know that my pain means more to me than my joy, perhaps because it affects me more deeply.  I would not surrender tragedy for any price.  Perhaps I even love Combeferre more because he is tragic than because he is such an exquisite companion – and so with the rest of them.  I may fight against the darkness, but after all I know that I need it, that it makes the light complete.

       I know, too, that it is just as sensible to weep for a sleeping man as for a dead one; the former has a harder road ahead of him, and likely only doom on his horizon.  The latter is not obliged to wake.

       And then, perhaps I weep for them now because I know...  Come time more apt, I shall not have the chance.

       Combeferre’s book is still there; its image doesn’t dim or waver; I know it’s real.  It smells of his ashes.  I wonder if anyone will remember that book, when he is gone.  I wonder if the shadows will remember that I loved him, that I loved all of them, and all their dusty books, and every flickering light that burns forever, like Pandora’s fragile prize, against fatality itself. 

       I wonder if poets are always so maudlin.

       I should have put this candle out half an hour ago.  Never mind that I am lonely and the dark is oppressive and laden with grief.  A small breath, and it will be done, and there will be wax enough left for another night.

       This isn’t a wake, after all.