Le Démon du Bien

Quotes and inspiration from the book by Henry De Montherlant, ''Le Démon du Bien''. The volume is a part of series of books called ''Les Jeunes Filles'' (The Young Girls, 1936–1939). 

Oh! My dear, you wanted to drink my soul! Now I'm the one who drinks your substance. Understand that a writer always has the last word. 

photo by Invitation To Inspiration

Costals talked about the importance of his work, without any false modesty, as the man who knows well that it’s him who’s leading the right path.

photo by Invitation To Inspiration

''The purest work of art, wouldn't it be a simple heartbeat?'' Said Mme Dandillot.

photo by Invitation To Inspiration

It’s funny, all the men, when speaking in private, share the same opinion: there is not a glance of the mystery in a woman. But, if they should write about woman, or talk about her in public, that is to say if they have to express themselves officially concerning this subject, there they go versing about The Mysterious Eve.

Anyway, whether there is some mystery in women or not, there is certain mystery in men. The mystery of the man is that a woman can love him.

photo by Invitation To Inspiration

''How many lost hopes, unfulfilled dreams does it carry?'' A woman will never think that a passing train also carries fulfilled dreams. It’s the melancholy that’s the small luxury of the poor souls. In the West, it’s the cult of suffering, dominated by women. In the East, where man is the master, it’s the cult of wisdom. But me, near this quiet and gloomy woman, I become sour, I play with words unworthy of me and unworthy of her. 

photo by Invitation To Inspiration

You’re lying like an angel! He murmured satisfied, at the stairs. I've always been afraid you couldn't do that, and that is one true disease, not being able to lie.

-I can deceive the ones I'm indifferent to. I couldn't deceive someone I love.

-No, me neither. But I could deceive someone that I'm only half in love with.

photo by Invitation To Inspiration

I've noticed long time ago the animal side that’s inside you…

 …how you focus on talking to your cats, which names I still don’t know by the way…

-They don’t have one.

-No names? Then how do you call them?

-I don’t call them. They come when they want to.

photo by Invitation To Inspiration

That work of seduction, with its infinite patience, until the day when a creature that was climbing along the wall couldn't move without you any more, that, that is worth living for.

photo by Invitation To Inspiration

Small victories are paid with high price.

photo by Invitation To Inspiration

Her harsh female face. He was afraid of her. The fear of what she was becoming. Fear of what she might do to him, if he foolishly locks himself in the cage with her. And as he had always had inside of him, in the dormant state, something fierce, just waiting for an opportunity to be awakened, it was the fear that awakened this ferocity (the mechanism is always the same, in the wild as well as in men: fear triggers the ferocity by which we want to remove what scares us, and the ferocity triggers the fear-the fear of reprisals).

photo by Invitation To Inspiration

She was far away and was believed to be safe. But from a far, he was withdrawing her fluids and depersonalizing her, through his art, like she had withdrawn his fluids and depersonalized him, through the power of annoyance which emanated from her. And he depersonalized her twice, because he dispersed her features in the several characters of his book; she ceased to be an individual, she ceased to be.

photo by Invitation To Inspiration

We cannot hate nor could we despise the children or the animals, because we could never say that they are below of what they’re supposed to be: they are miraculously clear.

The redemption of the mankind through the youth and the animals was one of his favorite myths, and (what’s most unusual) it has been ever since he was an adolescent himself. 

photo by Invitation To Inspiration

It’s the demon of charity, always, the one who messes up my life…

photo by Invitation To Inspiration

~Now, some time after that, Jesus met Iblis. He told him: ''The Prince of Pleasures, they say you cry. Is that true?'' Iblis answered: ''The men have made this bizarre idea of, as they call it, the gift of tears. The demons also cry. And what does that prove? Me too, I also cry sometimes. ''Jesus said: ''What do you cry about?'' Iblis said: ''I cry because I, the demon, I am forced to believe in God, and so I suffer.’’

''Me as well, I am forced to believe in you'', said Jesus. But you don’t cry just over that?'' Iblis said: ''I also cry for myself…

When I withdraw into my chambers, into the hollows of the balmy dessert, I have no contact with any other being except those who are the object of my fornication. They are the only ones I need. They alone pass my doorstep. They alone know it. I never hesitate when they knock. They don't love me, nor do I love them. We merge in silence like shadows. So that's all I do, and it doesn't bring me any pleasure...

…But strangely, I love mankind!…''

photo by Invitation To Inspiration

Jesus said to him : ''You’re full of Heaven, and that’s why you’re the Tempter. But could they believe in you?'' Iblis said: ''Why wouldn't they believe in me?''Jesus said to him: ''Don’t you know it's because of the punishment of the demons they don’t want to believe in them? I assumed you would be talking with pride.'' Iblis said: I have no pride.'' But Jesus was thinking to himself: ''We mustn't give him what’s convenient to him, because that will grant him the pride.'' Jesus, having withdrawn, began to cry.

photo by Invitation To Inspiration

He returned to Iblis and said to him: ''I cried because, after all, I believed in you. Oh Lucifer, thou who was created as a celebration and so beautiful in the sky, send a prayer to my Father, to take you back to those meadows of grace where you once gleamed. But Iblis said: ''That is not possible.'' Jesus said: ''Why? You said when you've done wrong it didn't bring you any pleasure. And then after that you said you've also done good.'' Iblis said: ''When I do good, I don’t get any more pleasure from it.''

So Jesus left him.~

A.B.

Love, Invitation to Inspiration