ally," said Cocles, "but from the blow no more; I prefer to have received it. It does not burn any more; it has revealed to me my goodness. I am flattered by it; I am pleased about it. I never cease to think that my pain was useful to my neighbour and that it brought him £20." "But the neighbour is dying of it," said Prometheus. . . . It is clear that M. Gide has not taken it as his province to justify the ways of God to man. I fancy he suspects Zeus of having acted without a motive on many previous occasions before the strange adventure of the boulevard. He is also clearly amused by the workings of the human conscience. If Damocles had not had a conscience, he would not have died. Cocles and Damocles, however, are only minor characters in this thin fantastic story. Prometheus is the real hero, though the accidents do not happen to him. He has only his eagle and his habit of lecturing about it. But it is his lectures about his eagle that give the book its meaning. His eagle is really a figure in an allegory-an allegory on a new plan. In the old-fashioned allegory one was more conscious of what the allegorical figures meant, than of the figures themselves. It was as if the author had tied labels round their necks. M. Gide realizes that we have got beyond such ancient simplicities. He conseqently gives his figures no labels, but bids us "Guess!" and we go on guessing till the end of the story. He has constructed a puzzle, and, though we do not know whether it is worth solving or not, he contrives to make us immensely curious about it and immensely determined to solve it. Most people, when they have read his story, will ask, "What does he mean? What is this eagle of Prometheus?" Why does he first say that everyone has an eagle and that one must nourish one's eagle? And why does he in the end kill his eagle and make a meal of it? And does M. Gide approve of the last proceeding? I see that the majority of critics identify the eagle with the human conscience. I think it is more than that. It is everything that prevents man from resting satisfied with a pagan philosophy of acceptance before the world's beauty. It is that fury in the human breast that makes men desire progress. It is the moral consciousness of the race that leads men into profound self-denials and profounder questionings. When Prometheus kills and eats his eagle, he grows fat and cheerful. Does M. Gide then look back regretfully on the moral history of mankind? On the contrary. The eagle was found to be delicious, and at dessert they all drank his health. "Has he, then, been useless?' asked one. 'Do not say that, Cocles! his flesh has nourished us. When I questioned him he answered nothing; but I eat him without bearing him a grudge: if he had made me suffer less, he would have been less fat; less fat he would have been less delectable.' 'Of his past beauty, what is there left?' 'I have kept all his feathers."" "It is with one of them," adds M. Gide, "that I write this little book." Yes, M. Gide is a moralist, though a gay one, and Prometheus Illbound is a tract. He, too, desires progress-even if it be progress somewhere beyond and away from progress. His book is an amusing, though not a very amusing, parable. It will appeal to those who prefer subtle little thoughts to vehement great ones. |