St. Ma
II
arme the Esoteric*
'
ANDRE GIDE
D URING ouR last conversation," the interviewer said, "you
happened to speak of sanctity, describing it, if I remember correctly,
as among the highest forms of heroism. Wouldn't it be better to con–
fine the word to its strictly religious meaning?"
/.-It is rather the meaning of the word "heroism" that I should
liko to restrict and qualify. When I say that we need heroes, I hope
you will understand that I am not talking about novels this time.
Heroism does not begin until a certain inertia has been overcome,
or until a person demands more of himself than he can comfortably
give. I am not trying to offer a definition of the word, for that can
be found in a dictionary; rather I am using it to describe a particular
order of virtues. It sometimes happens that heroes are created by ex–
ternal circumstances. During a battle, a fire or a shipwreck, quite
undistinguished people whose virtues had remained dormant may
reveal a devotion that amazes themselves. The saint, on the other
hand, does not wait for this provocation or command; he is possessed
by a secret need; he wishes to rise above the miserable condition of
ordinary human kind by obtaining from himself more, still more,
the best; he is not easily satisfied. Doubtless he is urged forward by
religious zeal and continually admonished by the God to whom he
listens in his heart. He is not surprised by himself nor filled
with
admiration at his deeds; no matter how lofty his flight, he still falls
*
In his early twenties, Gide was one of the poets invited to Mallarme's
Tuesdays in the Rue de Rome. Others who attended them at various periods were
Jules Lafargue, Henri de Regnier, Stefan George, Paul Claude!, Francis Viele–
Griffin (born in Norfolk, Virginia, during the Civil War), Paul Valery and
Saint-Pol-Roux: perhaps the most distinguished group of poets who, in modern
times, have regarded themselves as the disciples of a single master.
The present dialogue with an imaginary journalist was written for
Figaro
in the late spring of 1942, before Gide left Vichy France, where he had been
the subject of increasingly violent attacks in the press (with some threats against
his person) and established himself in Tunis. The French text of "Interviews
Imaginaires" is published in New York by Jacques Schiffrin and Company. A
complete English translation will be issued later this year by Alfred A. Knopf.–
M.C.
