Two Lives and a Dream

There are three novellas in this book, along with a “postface” for each one, written by the author. Marguerite Yourcenar wrote in French, so these are translated into English.

The first novella, An Obscure Man, concerns a young man of Dutch extraction but brought up in England in the 18th century. He stows away on a ship bound for the Americas, where he stays and lives for a couple of years. When he comes back home, he finds his family dispersed, so he goes to Holland and gets a job in his uncle's printing house. He lives in poor health and dire poverty until he is taken into a wealthy man's household and given easy work to do. His minimal, self-acquired education allows him to observe, read, think and form opinions about the culture he sees around him–art, philosophy, music. The story moves from the gritty physicality of the streets, hovels, taverns and brothels to the clean, airy, impersonality of a grove of trees on a windswept island, and a life of struggle and illness to apprehension and acceptance of death.

The second novella concerns a young boy, the son of the “obscure man” in the first story, brought up in an Amsterdam brothel and mentored by a famous actor. He strikes out for a life in a company of traveling actors and contemplates all the “lives” he will live through the people he will play in the theater.

The third, “Anna, soror...,” is the story of a brother and sister growing up in 16th century Naples, in a hothouse of religious piety.

These are not quick reads–the themes of these stories are heavy and the language is so heady that it takes time and concentration to read and understand them. In the postfaces she wrote for these, she said she had originally named them after painters (like Caravaggio for Anna, Soror...), and that fits with my experience reading them.