The Confession of a Child of the Century Part 23

One day a word, a flush, a glance, made me shudder; another day, another glance, another word, threw me into uncertainty. Why are they both so sad? Why am I as motionless as a statue where I had formerly been violent? Every evening I sat on my bed and said to myself: "Let me see; let me think that over." Then I sprang to my feet crying: "Impossible!"

The next day, I did the same thing.

In Smith's presence, Brigitte treated me with more tenderness than when we were alone. It happened one evening that some hard words escaped us; when she heard his voice in the hall, she came and sat on my knees. As for him, it seemed to me he was always making an effort to control himself. His gestures were carefully regulated; he spoke slowly and prudently, so that his occasional moments of forgetfulness seemed all the more striking.

Was it curiosity that tormented me? I remember that one day I saw a man drowning near Pont Royale. It was midsummer and we were rowing on the river; some thirty boats were crowded together under the bridge when, suddenly, one of the occupants of a boat near mine threw up his hands and fell overboard. We immediately began diving for him, but in vain; some hours later the body was found under a raft.

I shall never forget my experience as I was diving for that man. I opened my eyes under the water and searched painfully here and there in the dark corners about the pier; then I returned to the surface for breath, then resumed my horrible search. I was filled with hope and terror; the thought that I might feel myself seized by convulsive arms, allured me and, at the same time, thrilled me with horror; when I was exhausted with fatigue, I climbed back into my boat.

Unless a man is brutalized by debauchery, eager curiosity is one of his marked traits. I have already remarked that I felt it on the occasion of my first visit to Desgenais. I will explain my meaning.

The truth, that skeleton of appearances, ordains that every man, whatsoever he be, shall come, in his day and hour, to touch the bones that lie forever at the bottom of some chance experience. It is called knowing the world, and experience is purchased at that price. It happens that some recoil in terror before that test, others, feeble and affrighted, vacillate like shadows. Some, the best perhaps, die at once.

The large number forget, and thus, all float on to death.

But there are some men, who, at the fell stroke of misfortune, neither die nor forget; when it comes their turn to touch misfortune, otherwise called truth, they approach it with a firm step and outstretched hand, and horrible to say! they mistake love for the livid corpse they have found at the bottom of the river. They seize it, feel it, clasp it in their arms; behold them, drunk with the desire to know; they no longer look with interest upon things, except to see them pa.s.s; they do nothing except doubt and test; they ransack the world as though they were G.o.d's spies; they sharpen their thoughts into arrows, and they give birth to a monster.

The debauchees, more than all others, are exposed to that fury, and the reason is very simple: ordinary life is the limpid surface; the debauchees, the rapid current turning over and over, and, at times, touching the bottom. Coming from a ball, for instance, where they have danced with a modest girl, they seek the company of bad characters, and spend the night in riotous feasting. The last words they addressed to a beautiful and virtuous woman are still on their lips; they repeat them and burst into laughter. Shall I say it? Do they not raise, for some pieces of silver, the vesture of chast.i.ty, that robe so full of mystery, that seems to respect the being it embellishes and surrounds without touching? What idea can they have of the world? They are like comedians in the greenroom. Who, more than they, is skilled in that research at the bottom of things, in that groping, profound and impious? See how they speak of everything; always in terms the most barren, the most crude and abject; such words appear true to them; all the rest is only parade, convention, prejudice. Let them tell a story, let them recount some experience, they will always use the same dirty and material expression, always the letter, always death! They do not say "That woman loved me;"

they say: "I have possessed that woman;" they do not say: "I love;" they say: "I desire;" they never say: "If G.o.d wills;" they say: "If I will." I do not know what they think of themselves and such monologues as these.

Hence, of a necessity, either idleness or curiosity; for while they strive to find what there is of evil, they do not understand that others still believe in the good. Therefore, they are either so nonchalant that they stop their ears, or the noise of the rest of the world suddenly startles them from sleep. The father allows his son to go where so many others go, where Cato himself went; he says that youth is but a stage.

But when he returns, the youth looks upon his sister; and sees what has taken place in him during an hour pa.s.sed in the society of brutal reality! He says to himself: "My sister is not like that creature I have just left!" And from that day he is disturbed and uneasy.

Sinful curiosity is a vile malady born of all impure contact. It is the prowling instinct of fantoms who raise the lids of tombs; it is an inexplicable torture with which G.o.d punishes those who have sinned; they wish to believe that all sin as they have done, and would be disappointed perhaps to find that it was not so. But they inquire, they search, they dispute; they hang their heads on one side, as does an architect who adjusts a pillar, and thus strive to find what they desire to know. Given proof of evil, they laugh at it; doubtful of evil, they swear that it exists; the good, they refuse to recognize. "Who knows?" Behold the grand formula, the first words that Satan spoke when he saw heaven closing against him. Alas! how many evils are those words responsible for! How many disasters and deaths, how many strokes of terrible scythes in the ripening harvest of humanity! How many hearts, how many families where there is naught but ruin, since that word was first heard! "Who knows!

Who knows!" Loathsome words! Rather than p.r.o.nounce them, one should do as the sheep who graze about the slaughter-house and know it not. That is better than to be a strong spirit and read La Rochefoucauld.

What better ill.u.s.tration could I present than the one I have just given?

My mistress was ready to set out and I had but to say the word. Why did I delay? What would have been the result if I had started at once on our trip? Nothing but a moment of apprehension that would have been forgotten after traveling three days. When with me, she had no thought but of me; why should I care to solve the mystery that did not threaten my happiness?

She would have consented and that would have been the end of it. A kiss on her lips and all would be well; instead of that, see what I did.

One evening when Smith had dined with us, I retired at an early hour and left them together. As I closed my door, I heard Brigitte order some tea.

In the morning I happened to approach her table, and, sitting beside the teapot, I saw but one cup. No one had been in that room before me that morning, so the servant could not have carried away anything that had been used the night before. I searched everywhere for a second cup but could find none.

"Did Smith stay late?" I asked of Brigitte.

"He left about midnight."

"Did you retire alone or did you call some one to a.s.sist you?"

"I retired alone; every one in the house was asleep."

I continued my search and my hands trembled. In what burlesque comedy is there a jealous lover, so stupid as to inquire what has become of a cup?

Why seek to discover whether Smith and Madame Pierson had drunk from the same cup? What a brilliant idea, that!

Nevertheless, I found the cup and I burst into laughter and threw it on the floor with such violence that it broke into a thousand pieces. I ground the pieces under my feet.

Brigitte looked at me without saying a word. During the two succeeding days, she treated me with a coldness that had something of contempt in it, and I saw that she treated Smith with more deference and kindness than usual. She called him, Henry, and smiled on him sweetly.

"I feel that the air would do me good," she said after dinner; "shall we go to the Opera, Octave? I would enjoy walking that far."

"No, I will stay here; go without me." She took Smith's arm and went out.

I remained alone all the evening; I had paper before me and I was trying to collect my thoughts in order to write, but in vain.

As a lonely lover draws from his bosom a letter from his mistress, and loses himself in delightful reverie, thus I shut myself up in solitude and yielded to the sweet allurement of doubt. Before me, were the two empty seats which Brigitte and Smith had just occupied; I scrutinized them eagerly as though they could tell me something. I revolved in my mind all the things I had heard and seen; from time to time, I went to the door and cast my eyes over our trunks which had been piled against the wall for a month; I opened them and examined the contents so carefully packed away by those delicate little hands; I listened to the sound of pa.s.sing carriages; the slightest noise made me tremble. I spread out on the table our map of Europe, and there in the very presence of all my hopes, in that room where I had conceived and had so nearly realized them, I abandoned myself to the most frightful presentiments.

But strange as it may seem, I felt neither anger nor jealousy, but a terrible sense of sorrow and foreboding. I did not suspect, and yet, I doubted. The mind of man is so strangely formed that, with what he sees, and in spite of what he sees, he can conjure up a hundred objects of woe.

In truth, his brain resembles the dungeons of the Inquisition whose walls are covered with so many instruments of torture, that one is dazed and asks whether these horrible contrivances he sees before him are pincers or playthings. Tell me, I say, what difference is there in saying to my mistress: "All women deceive," or, "You deceive me?"

What pa.s.sed through my mind was perhaps as subtle as the finest sophistry; it was a sort of dialogue between the mind and the conscience.

"If I should lose Brigitte?" I said to the mind.--"She departs with you,"

said the conscience.--"If she deceives me?"--"How can she deceive you?

Has she not made out her will asking for prayers for you?"--"If Smith loves her?"--"Fool! What does it matter so long as you know that she loves you?"--"If she loves me, why is she sad?"--"That is her secret, respect it."--"If I take her away with me, will she be happy?"--"Love her and she will be."--"Why, when that man looks at her, does she seem to fear to meet his glance?"--"Because she is a woman and he is young."--"Why does that young man turn pale when she looks at him?"--"Because he is a man and she is beautiful."--"Why, when I went to see him, did he throw himself into my arms, and why did he weep and beat his head with his hands?"--"Do not seek to know of what you must remain ignorant."--"Why can I not know these things?"--"Because you are miserable and weak, and all mystery is of G.o.d."--"But why is it that I suffer? Why is it that my soul recoils in terror?"--"Think of your father and do good."--"But why am I unable to do as he did? Why does evil attract me to itself?"--"Get down on your knees and confess; if you believe in evil it is because your ways have been evil."--"If my ways were evil, was it my fault? Why did the good betray me?"--"Because you are in the shadow, would you deny the existence of light? If there are traitors, why are you one of them?"--"Because I am afraid of becoming the dupe."--"Why do you spend your nights in watching? Why are you alone now?"--"Because I think, I doubt and I fear."--"When will you offer your prayer?"--"When I believe. Why have they lied to me?"--"Why do you lie, coward! at this very moment? Why not die if you can not suffer?"

Thus, spoke and groaned within me two voices, voices that were defiant and terrible; and then, a third voice cried out: "Alas! Alas! my innocence! Alas! Alas! the days that were!"

CHAPTER V

WHAT a powerful lever is the human thought! It is our defense and our safeguard, the most beautiful present that G.o.d has made us. It is ours and it obeys us; we may shoot it forth into s.p.a.ce, and, once outside of this feeble head, it is gone, we can no longer control it.

While I was deferring the time of our departure from day to day, I was gradually losing strength, and, although I did not perceive it, my vital forces were slowly wasting away. When I sat at table, I experienced a violent distaste for food; at night two pale faces, that of Brigitte and of Smith, pursued me through frightful dreams. When they went to the theater in the evening, I refused to go with them; then, I went alone and concealed myself in the parquet and watched them. I pretended that I had some business to attend to in a neighboring room and I sat there an hour and listened to them. The idea occurred to me to seek a quarrel with Smith and force him to fight with me; I turned my back on him while he was talking; then he came to me with a look of surprise on his face, holding out his hand. When I was alone in the night and every one slept, I felt a strong desire to go to Brigitte's desk and take from it, her papers. On one occasion, I was obliged to go out of the house in order to resist the temptation. One day I felt like arming myself with a knife and threatening to kill them if they did not tell me why they were so sad; another day I turned all this fury against myself. With what shame do I write it! And if any one should ask me why I acted thus, I could not reply.

To see, to doubt, to search, to torture myself and make myself miserable, to pa.s.s entire days with my ear to the keyhole and the night in a flood of tears, to repeat over and over that I would die of sorrow, to feel isolation and feebleness uprooting hope in my heart, to imagine that I was spying when I was only listening to the feverish beating of my own pulse; to con over stupid phrases, such as: "Life is a dream, there is nothing stable here below;" to curse and blaspheme G.o.d through misery and through caprice: that was my joy, the precious occupation for which I renounced love, the air of heaven, and liberty!

Eternal G.o.d, liberty! Yes, there were certain moments when, in spite of all, I still thought of it. In the midst of my madness, eccentricity, and stupidity, there were within me certain impulses that at times brought me to myself. It was a breath of air which struck my face as I came from my dungeon; it was a page of a book I read when, in my bitter days, I happened to read something besides those modern sycophants called pamphleteers, and who, out of regard for the public health, ought to be prevented from indulging in their crude philosophizing. Since I have referred to these good moments, let me mention one of them, they were so rare. One evening, I was reading the "Memoirs of Constant"; I came to the following lines:

"Salsdorf, a Saxon surgeon attached to Prince Christian, had his leg broken by a sh.e.l.l in the battle of Wagram. He lay almost lifeless on the dusty field. Fifteen paces distant, Amedee of Kerbourg, aide-de-camp, I have forgotten of whom, wounded in the breast by a bullet, falls to the ground vomiting blood. Salsdorf sees that if that young man is not cared for he will die of apoplexy; summoning all his powers, he painfully drags himself to the side of the wounded man, bleeds him and saves his life.

Salsdorf himself died four days later from the effects of amputation."

When I read these words, I threw down my book, and melted into tears.

I do not regret those tears for they were such as I could shed only when my heart was right; I do not speak merely of Salsdorf, and do not care for that particular instance. I am sure, however, that I did not suspect any one that day. Poor dreamer! Ought I to remember that I have been other than I am? What good will it do me as I stretch out my arms in anguish to heaven and wait for the sh.e.l.l that will deliver me forever.

Alas! that was only a gleam that flashed across the night of my life.

Like those dervish fanatics who find ecstasy in vertigo when thought, turning on itself, exhausted by the stress of introspection, tired of vain effort, recoils in fright; thus it would seem that man must be a void and that by dint of delving within himself, he reaches the last turn of a spiral. There, as on the summits of mountains and at the bottom of mines, air fails and G.o.d forbids man to go farther. Then, struck with a mortal chill, the heart, as though impaired by oblivion, seeks to escape into a new birth; it demands life of that which environs it, it eagerly drinks in the air; but it finds round about only its own chimeras which have just animated its failing powers and which, self-created, surround it like pitiless specters.

This can not last long. Tired of uncertainty, I resolved to resort to a test that would discover the truth.

I ordered post horses for ten in the evening. We had hired a calash and I gave direction that all should be ready at the hour indicated. At the same time I asked that nothing be said to Madame Pierson. Smith came to dinner; at the table I affected unusual cheerfulness, and without a word about my plans, I turned the conversation to our journey. I would renounce all idea of going away, I said, if I thought Brigitte did not care to go; I was so well satisfied with Paris that I asked nothing better than to remain as long as she pleased. I made much of all the pleasures of the city; I spoke of the b.a.l.l.s, the theaters, of the many opportunities for diversion on every hand. In short, since we were happy, I did not see why we should make a change; and I did not think of going away at present.

I was expecting her to insist that we carry out our plan of going to Geneva, and was not disappointed. However, she insisted but feebly; but, after a few words, I pretended to yield, and then changing the subject, I spoke of other things, as though it was all settled.

"And why will not Smith go with us?" I asked. "It is very true that he has duties here, but can he not obtain leave of absence? Moreover, will not the talents he possesses and which he is unwilling to use a.s.sure him an honorable living anywhere? Let him come along with us; the carriage is large and we offer him a place in it. A young man should see the world and there is nothing so irksome for a man of his age as confinement in an office and restriction to a narrow circle. Is it not true?" I asked, turning to Brigitte. "Come, my dear, let your credit obtain from him what he might refuse me; urge him to give us six weeks of his time. We will travel together and, after a tour of Switzerland, he will return to his duties with new life."

Brigitte joined her entreaties to mine, although she knew it was only a joke on my part. Smith could not leave Paris without danger of losing his position and replied that he regretted being obliged to deny himself the pleasure of accompanying us. Nevertheless, I continued to press him, and, ordering another bottle of wine, I repeated my invitation. After dinner, I went out to a.s.sure myself that my orders were carried out; then I returned in high spirits, and seating myself at the piano, I proposed some music.

"Let us pa.s.s the evening here," I said; "believe me it is better than going to the theater; I can not take part myself, but I can listen. We will make Smith play, if he tires of our company, and the time will pa.s.s pleasantly."