Glyn Hughes' SQUASHED WRITERS ALL THE BOOKS YOU THINK YOU OUGHT TO HAVE READ In their own words... but magically Squashed into half-hour short stories...

The Squashed version of
A Journey Round My Room
by
Count Xavier de Maistre
1794

I. My Great Discovery

How glorious it is to open a new career, and to appear suddenly in the world of science with a book of discoveries in one's hand like an unexpected comet sparkling in space! Here is the book, gentleman. I have undertaken and carried out a journey of forty-two days in my room. The interesting observations I have made, and the continual pleasure I have felt during this long expedition, excited in me the wish to publish it; the certitude of the usefulness of my work decided me. My heart is filled with an inexpressible satisfaction when I think of the infinite number of unhappy persons to whom I am now able to offer an assured resource against the tediousness and vexations of life. The delight one finds in travelling in one's own room is a pure joy, exempt from the unquiet jealousies of men and independent of ill-fortune.

In the immense family of men that swarm on the surface of the earth, there is not one-no, not one (I am speaking, of course, of those who have a room to live in)-who can, after having read this book, refuse his approbation to the new way of travelling which I have invented. It costs nothing, that is the great thing! Thus it is certain of being adopted by very rich people! Thousands of persons who have never thought of travelling will now resolve to follow my example.

Come, then, let us go forth! Follow me, all ye hermits who through some mortification in love, some negligence in friendship, have withdrawn into your rooms far from the pettiness and infidelity of mankind! But quit your dismal thoughts, I pray you. Every minute you lose some pleasure without gaining any wisdom in place of it. Deign to accompany me on my travels. We shall go by easy stages, laughing all along the road at every tourist who has gone to Rome or Paris. No obstacle shall stop us, and, surrendering ourselves to our imagination, we will follow it wherever it may lead us.

But persons are so curious. I am sure you would like to know why my journey round my room lasted forty-two days instead of forty-three, or some other space of time. But how can I tell you when I do not know myself? All I can say is that if you find my work too long, it was not my fault. In spite of the vanity natural in a traveller, I should have been very glad if it had only run a single chapter. The fact is, that though I was allowed in my room all the pleasures and comfort possible, I was not permitted to leave it when I wished.

Is there anything more natural and just than to fight to the death with a man who has inadvertently trodden on your foot, or let fall some sharp words in a moment of vexation of which your imprudence was the cause? Nothing, you will admit, is more logical; and yet there are some people who disapprove of this admirable custom.

But, what is still more natural and logical, the very people who disapprove it and regard it as a grave crime treat with greater rigour any man who refuses to commit it. Many an unhappy fellow has lost his reputation and position through conforming with their views, so that if you have the misfortune to be engaged in what is called "an affair of honour," it is best to toss up to see if you should follow the law or the custom; and as the law and the custom in regard to duelling are contradictory, the magistrates would also do well to frame their sentence on the throw of the dice. Probably, it was in this way that they determined that my journey should last exactly forty-two days.

II. My Armchair and my Bed

My chamber forms a square, round which I can take thirty-six steps, if I keep very close to the wall. But I seldom travel in a straight line. I dislike persons who are such masters of their feet and of their ideas that they can say: "To-day I shall make three calls, I shall write four letters, I shall finish this work that I have begun." So rare are the pleasures scattered along our difficult path in life, that we must be mad not to turn out of our way and gather anything of joy which is within our reach.

To my mind, there is nothing more attractive than to follow the trail of one's ideas, like a hunter tracking down game, without holding to any road. I like to zigzag about. I set out from my table to the picture in the corner. From there I journey obliquely towards the door; but if I come upon my armchair I stand on no ceremonies, but settle myself in it at once. 'Tis an excellent piece of furniture, an armchair, and especially useful to a meditative man. In long winter evenings it is sometimes delightful and always wise to stretch oneself in it easily, far from the din of the numerous assemblies.

After my armchair, in walking towards the north I discover my bed, which is placed at the end of my room, and there forms a most agreeable perspective. So happily is it arranged that the earliest rays of sunlight come and play on the curtains. I can see them, on fine summer mornings, advancing along the white wall with the rising sun; some elms, growing before my window, divide them in a thousand ways, and make them dance on my bed, which, by their reflection, spread all round the room the tint of its own charming white and rose pattern. I hear the twittering of the swallows that nest in the roof, and of other birds in the elms; a stream of charming thoughts flows into my mind, and in the whole world nobody has an awakening as pleasant and as peaceful as mine.

III. The Beast

Only metaphysicians must read this chapter. It throws a great light on the nature of man. I cannot explain how and why I burnt my fingers at the first steps I made in setting out on my journey around my room, until I expose my system of the soul and the beast. In the course of diverse observations I have found out that man is composed of a soul and a beast.

It is often said that man is made up of a soul and a body, and this body is accused of doing all sorts of wrong things. In my opinion, there is no ground for such accusations, for the body is as incapable of feeling as it is of thinking. The beast is the creature on whom the blame should be laid. It is a sensible being, perfectly distinct from the soul, a veritable individual, with its separate existence, tastes, inclinations, and will; it is superior to other animals only because it has been better brought up, and endowed with finer organs. The great art of a man of genius consists in knowing how to train his beast so well that it can run alone, while the soul, delivered from its painful company, rises up into the heavens. I must make this clear by an example.

One day last summer I was walking along on my way to the court. I had been painting all the morning, and my soul, delighted with her meditation on painting, left to the beast the care of transporting me to the king's palace.

"What a sublime art painting is!" thought my soul. "Happy is the man who has been touched by the spectacle of nature, who is not compelled to paint pictures for a living, and still less just to pass the time away; but who, struck by the majesty of a fine physiognomy and by the admirable play of light that blends in a thousand tints on a human face, tries to approach in his works the sublime effects of nature!"

While my soul was making these reflections, the beast was running its own way. Instead of going to court, as it had been ordered to, it swerved so much to the left that at the moment when my soul caught it up, it was at the door of Mme. de Hautcastel's house, half a mile from the palace.

* * * * *

If it is useful and pleasant to have a soul so disengaged from the material world that one can let her travel all alone when one wishes to, this faculty is not without its inconveniences. It was through it, for instance, that I burnt my fingers. I usually leave to my beast the duty of preparing my breakfast. It toasts my bread and cuts it in slices. Above all, it makes coffee beautifully, and it drinks it very often without my soul taking part in the matter, except when she amuses herself with watching the beast at work. This, however, is rare, and a very difficult thing to do.

It is easy, during some mechanical act, to think of something else; but it is extremely difficult to study oneself in action, so to speak; or, to explain myself according to my own system, to employ one's soul in examining the conduct of one's beast, to see it work without taking any part. This is really the most astonishing metaphysical feat that man can execute.

I had laid my tongs on the charcoal to toast my bread, and some time after, while my soul was on her travels, a flaming stump rolled on the grate; my poor beast went to take up the tongs, and I burnt my fingers.

IV. A Great Picture

The first stage of my journey round my room is accomplished. While my soul has been explaining my new system of metaphysic, I have been sitting in my armchair in my favourite attitude, with the two front feet raised a couple of inches off the floor. By swaying my body to and fro, I have insensibly gained ground, and I find myself with a start close to the wall. This is the way in which I travel when I am not in a hurry.

My chamber is hung with prints and paintings which embellish it in an admirable manner. I should like the reader to examine them one after the other, and to entertain himself during the long journey that we must make in order to arrive at my desk. Look, here is a portrait of Raphael. Beside it is a likeness of the adorable lady whom he loved.

But I have something still finer than these, and I always reserve it for the last. I find that both connoisseurs and ignoramuses, both women of the world and little children, yes, and even animals, are pleased and astonished by the way in which this sublime work renders every effect in nature. What picture can I present to you, gentlemen; what scene can I put beneath your lovely eyes, ladies, more certain of winning your favour than the faithful image of yourselves? The work of which I speak is a looking-glass, and nobody up to the present has taken it into his head to criticise it; it is, for all those who study it, a perfect picture in which there is nothing to blame. It is thus the gem of my collection.

You see this withered rose? It is a flower of the Turin carnival of last year. I gathered it myself at Valentin's, and in the evening, an hour before the ball, I went full of hope and joy to present it to Mme. de Hautcastel. She took it, and placed it on her dressing-table without looking at it, and without looking at me. But how could she take any notice of me? Standing in an ectasy before a great mirror, she was putting the last touches to her finery. So totally was she absorbed in the ribbons, the gauzes, the ornaments heaped up before her, that I could not obtain a glance, a sign. I finished my losing patience, and being unable to resist the feeling of anger that swept over me, I took up the rose and walked out without taking leave of my sweetheart.

"Are you going?" she said, turning round to see her figure in profile.

I did not answer, but I listened at the door to learn if my brusque departure produced any effect.

"Do you not see," exclaimed Mme. de Hautcastel to her maid, after a short silence, "that this pelisse is much too full at the bottom? Get some pins and make a tuck in it."

That is how I come to have a withered rose on my desk. I shall make no reflections on the affair. I shall not even draw any conclusions from it concerning the force and duration of a woman's love.

My forty-two days are coming to an end, and an equal space of time would not suffice to describe the rich country in which I am now travelling, for I have at last reached my bookshelf. It contains nothing but novels-yes, I shall be candid-nothing but novels and a few choice poets. As though I had not enough troubles of my own, I willingly share in those of a thousand imaginary persons, and I feel them as keenly as if they were mine. What tears have I shed over the unhappiness of Clarissa!

But if I thus seek for feigned afflictions, I find, in compensation, in this imaginary world, the virtue, the goodness, the disinterestedness which I have been unable to discover together in the real world in which I exist. It is there that I find the wife that I desire, without temper, without lightness, without subterfuge; I say nothing about beauty-you can depend on my imagination for that! Then, closing the book which no longer answers to my ideas, I take her by the hand, and we wander together through a land a thousand times more delicious than that of Eden. What painter can depict the scene of enchantment in which I have placed the divinity of my heart? But when I am tired of love-making I take up some poet, and set out again for another world.

V. In Prison Again

O charming land of imagination which has been given to men to console them for the realities of life, it is time for me to leave thee! This is the day when certain persons pretend to give me back my freedom, as though they had deprived me of it! As though it were in their power to take it away from me for a single instant, and to hinder me from scouring as I please the vast space always open before me! They have prevented me from going out into a single town-Turin, a mere point on the earth-but they have left to me the entire universe; immensity and eternity have been at my service.

To-day, then, I am free, or rather I am going to be put back into irons. The yoke of business is again going to weigh me down; I shall not be able to take a step which is not measured by custom or duty. I shall be fortunate if some capricious goddess does not make me forget one and the other, and if I escape from this new and dangerous captivity.

Oh, why did they not let me complete my journey! Was it really to punish me that they confined me in my room? In this country of delight which contains all the good things, all the riches of the world? They might as well have tried to chastise a mouse by shutting him up in a granary.

Yet never have I perceived more clearly that I have a double nature. All the time that I am regretting my pleasures of the imagination, I feel myself consoled by force. A secret power draws me away. It tells me that I have need of the fresh air and the open sky, and that solitude resembles death. So here am I dressed and ready. My door opens; I am rambling under the spacious porticoes of the street of Po; a thousand charming phantoms dance before my eyes. Yes, this is her mansion, this is the door; I tremble with anticipation.