Gide calls "Dspsrsonnalisation" his ability to experience as his

-101

Once again, Valery's insistence has forced Gide into stating his fundamental opinion*

In the same breath, Gide announces his intention of dedicating hie

Traite to Valery. Although Pierre Louys approves completely of his work, Gide expresses his fear that Valery may find it a little brutal. Gide’s anxiety is perhaps not without justification if one remembers Valery’s conment that literature should not provoke scandal.

Although Valery recognises the importance of Gide’s dedication, he himself, looks upon correspondence as the supreme dedication of “une oeuvre d’art ornamental charmante” (16th November 1891, 158) to one person only. Yet again, Valery shows hie desire for exclusivity and his lack of concern with a public. Gide, on the contrary, cares about his public, especially in his newfound role of the artist who "manifeats".

Not surprisingly, therefore, he makes no reply to Valery’s view of correspondence. The superior position granted by Valery to the latter over literature ie in keeping. Valery le always more ready to respond on the issue of private friendship which seems to be more important to him than that of literature. Gide, on the other hand, lays more importance on hia literature which le obviously destined to become public property. This difference between the two men is not as yet prominent. The young Gide feels a very deep need for friendship) but as the literary man greiws, so too grows his discontent at Valery’s apparent lack of interest in his literary production.

The fact that Gide does not continue to disouss the question of

dedication is also due to hie being caught up in a new set of circumstances. Gide has become "quelqu’un d’abruti, qui ne lit plus, qui n’ecrit plus,

qui ne dort plus, ni ne mange, ni ne pense” (28th November 1891, 159)• but who frequents cafes and salons with the admirable "esthete Oscar

1. G./.V. Corr., September 1891, p.126. .

2. I believe that Gide uses this word in his Trait* not juat in the sense of "portraying clearly" but also with its more active connotations, as does Maurice Nadeau, Homans, p.XVI.

Wilde" (159).

Although this is not the first tine Gide has succumbed to the

temptation of the outside world, it is the first tine that Valery expresses disapproval of his friend's fascination with what he 9ees as

shallow, literary circles. One is left in no doubt that it is Wilde who has incurred Valery's displeasure : "Courir parmi les Oscar Wilde reves, dont les apparences auront fait esperer a tea dolgts le secret de la

beaute nouvelle•••o'est d'un insense" (3rd December 1891, 140). For Valery, who is seeking the permanent, the absolute, "lea apparences fugitives'* are one of the greatest dangers to his friend. Perhaps to counter-balance this, he evokes the progression of his own friendship with Gide and bids him to come and see him.

The influence

of

Huysman's La-Bas also points to this development since, despite his

interest in the book, he finds it rather annoying with its "6lans vers

l'au-dela, ses bonds vers le aupra-seneible, ses prurits d'ame" (15th

C>£Ckt^fc>?rl891, 141).

Although the new Gide is originally self-composed, Gide is as

conscious as Valery of the danger Wilde constitutes for him. He promises

to come to see Valery in Montpellier but says that : "...ce ne sera

jamais qu'enfin. Je m'englue paxmi des apparences; en l'attente du soir ou pres des oygnes noirs du bassin, nous oauserons de choses, reelles" (28th November 1891, 159).

Despite Gide's obvious longing for the black swans, which represent not only his previous meeting with Valery but all the purity of his youth

and his attraction to Symbolism, it is clear that he ie so far under

Wilde's influence that it is only a last desperate effort which will enable him to escape from Wilde's "pious" attempts to kill "ce qui me

105-

has already, on hie own, severed all but a few links with the world of

the soul. Nonetheless, the fact that Gide writes i "...Je n’ai plus dans le coeur un silence" (141), indicates, by his use of a word dear to the Symbolists, that he regrets the "real" world of purity.

Gide, the artist, is now dreaming of "un drarae syraetrique, ou les fantoches evolueraient reciproquement, ou tout se tiendrait dans une necessaire dependance. Ou 1*artifice, ou l’art seraient de

subordination" (141). Aesthetics are thus to be subjugated to ideas. Valery is quiok to spot the danger of such an approach to art. Just as Valery disapproves of Wilde, this "symbolique bouohe a la Kedon" (5th December 1891, 142), so he cannot accept Gide’s artistic

plans. Valery is convinced that determinism and logic are the negation of beauty and must be the enemies of any true artist. Besides, Valery

o feels that the only perfect drama is that provided by the Mass.

This confrontation between two artistic standpoints is not destined to be continued in correspondence, although much later on Gide himself raises this question in his correspondence with Martin du Gard. Cide who "depuis Wilde.•• n’existe plus que tree peu" (Christmas Eve, 1891, 144), can no longer resist his friends call.

Gide has high hopes for the explanatory conversation he will have with Valery. When he writes t "...je me souhaite aupres de ton ame silencieuse une oasis tranquille" (144), he is obviously expecting

z

Valery’s presence to rescue him from the rather frightening gulf to which his moral, social and artistic development has lead him. Gide is still wavering on the threshold of his Traite.their conversation proves

1. Pierre Louys also reproaches Gide with attaching too much importance