CHAPTER IX. BACCHUS, THE CONSOLER
Suddenly, in the midst of black despair, youth and chance led me tocommit an act that decided my fate.
I had written my mistress that I wished never to see her again; I keptmy word, but I passed the nights under her window, seated on a benchbefore her door. I could see the lights in her room, I could hear thesound of her piano, at times I saw something that looked like a shadowthrough the partially drawn curtains.
One night as I was seated on the bench, plunged in frightful melancholy,I saw a belated workman staggering along the street. He muttered a fewwords in a dazed manner and then began to sing. So much was he under theinfluence of liquor that he walked at times on one side of the gutterand then on the other. Finally he fell upon a bench facing another houseopposite me. There he lay still, supported on his elbows, and sleptprofoundly.
The street was deserted, a dry wind stirred the dust here and there; themoon shone through a rift in the clouds and lighted the spot wherethe man slept. So I found myself tete-a-tete with this boor, who, notsuspecting my presence, was sleeping on that stone bench as peacefullyas if in his own bed.
The man served to divert my grief; I arose to leave him in fullpossession, but returned and resumed my seat. I could not leave thatfateful door, at which I would not have knocked for an empire. Finally,after walking up and down a few times, I stopped before the sleeper.
"What sleep!" I said. "Surely this man does not dream. His clothes arein tatters, his cheeks are wrinkled, his hands hardened with toil; he issome unfortunate who does not have a meal every day. A thousand gnawingcares, a thousand mortal sorrows await his return to consciousness;nevertheless, this evening he had money in his pocket, and entered atavern where he purchased oblivion. He has earned enough in a week toenjoy a night of slumber, and perhaps has purchased it at the expense ofhis children's supper. Now his mistress can betray him, his friend canglide like a thief into his hut; I could shake him by the shoulder andtell him that he is being murdered, that his house is on fire; he wouldturn over and continue to sleep."
"And I--I do not sleep," I continued, pacing up and down the street, "Ido not sleep, I who have enough in my pocket at this moment to purchasesleep for a year. I am so proud and so foolish that I dare not entera tavern, and it seems I do not understand that if unfortunates enterthere, it is to come out happy. O God! grapes crushed beneath the footsuffice to dissipate the deepest sorrow and to break the invisiblethreads that the fates weave about our pathway. We weep like women, wesuffer like martyrs; in our despair it seems that the world is crumblingunder our feet, and we sit down in tears as did Adam at Eden's gate.And to cure our griefs we have but to make a movement of the hand andmoisten our throats. How contemptible our sorrow since it can be thusassuaged! We are surprised that Providence does not send angels to grantour prayers; it need not take the trouble, for it has seen our woes,it knows our desires, our pride and bitterness, the ocean of evil thatsurrounds us, and is content to hang a small black fruit along ourpaths. Since that man sleeps so soundly on his bench, why do not I sleepon mine? My rival is doubtless passing the night with my mistress; hewill leave her at daybreak; she will accompany him to the door and theywill see me asleep on my bench. Their kisses will not awaken me, andthey will shake me by the shoulder; I will turn over on the other sideand sleep on."
Thus, inspired by fierce joy, I set out in quest of a tavern. As it waspast midnight some were closed; this put me in a fury. "What!" I cried,"even that consolation is refused me!" I ran hither and thither knockingat the doors of taverns, crying: "Wine! Wine!"
At last I found one open; I called for a bottle, and without caringwhether it was good or bad, I gulped it down; a second followed, andthen a third. I dosed myself as with medicine, and forced the wine downas if it had been prescribed by some physician to save my life.
The heavy fumes of the liquor, doubtless adulterated, mounted tomy head. As I had gulped it down at a breath, drunkenness seized mepromptly; I felt that I was becoming muddled, then I experienced a lucidmoment, then confusion followed. Then consciousness left me, I leaned myelbows on the table and said adieu to myself.
But I had a confused idea that I was not alone in the tavern. At theother end of the room stood a hideous group with haggard faces and harshvoices. Their dress indicated that they belonged to the poorer class,but were not bourgeois; in short, they belonged to that ambiguous class,the vilest of all, which has neither fortune nor occupation, which neverworks except at some criminal plot, a class which, neither poor norrich, combines the vices of one with the misery of the other.
They were quarrelling over a dirty pack of cards. Among them was a girlwho appeared to be very young and very pretty, was decently clad, andresembled her companions in no way, except in the harshness of hervoice, which was as rough and broken as if it had performed the officeof public crier. She looked at me closely, as if astonished to see mein such a bad place, for I was elegantly attired. Little by little sheapproached my table and seeing that all the bottles were empty, smiled.I saw that she had fine teeth of brilliant whiteness; I took her handand begged her to be seated; she consented with good grace and askedwhat we should have for supper.
I looked at her without saying a word, while my eyes began to fillwith tears; she observed my emotion and inquired the cause. I could notreply. She understood that I had some secret sorrow and forebore anyattempt to learn the cause; with her handkerchief she dried my tearsfrom time to time as we dined.
There was something about this girl at once repulsive and sweet, asingular boldness mingled with pity, that I could not understand. Ifshe had taken my hand in the street she would have inspired a feeling ofhorror in me; but it seemed so strange that a creature I had never seenshould come to me, and, without a word, proceed to order supper anddry my tears with her handkerchief, that I was rendered speechless; itrevolted, yet charmed me. What I had done had been done so quickly thatI seemed to have obeyed some impulse of despair. Perhaps I was a fool,or the victim of some supernatural caprice.
"Who are you?" I suddenly cried out; "what do you want of me? How do youknow who I am? Who told you to dry my tears? Is this your vocation anddo you think I desire you? I would not touch you with the tip of myfinger. What are you doing here? Reply at once. Is it money you want?What price do you put on your pity?"
I arose and tried to go out, but my feet refused to support me. At thesame time my eyes failed me, a mortal weakness took possession of me andI fell over a stool.
"You are not well," she said, taking me by the arm, "you have drunk,like the child that you are, without knowing what you were doing. Sitdown in this chair and wait until a cab passes. You will tell me whereyou live and I will order the driver to take you home to your mother,since," she added, "you really find me ugly."
As she spoke I raised my eyes. Perhaps my drunkenness deceived me, orperhaps I had not seen her face clearly before, but suddenly I detectedin that unfortunate girl a fatal resemblance to my mistress. I shudderedat the sight. There is a certain shudder that affects the hair; some sayit is death passing over the head, but it was not death that passed overmine.
It was the malady of the age, or rather was it that girl herself; and itwas she who, with her pale, halfmocking features and rasping voice, cameand sat with me at the end of the tavern room.
The moment I perceived her resemblance to my mistress a frightful ideaoccurred to me; it took irresistible possession of my muddled mind, andI put it into execution at once.
I escorted that girl to my home; and I arranged my room just as I hadbeen wont to do when my mistress was with me, for I was dominated by acertain recollection of past joys.
Having arranged my room to my satisfaction, I gave myself up to theintoxication of despair. I probed my heart to the bottom in order tosound its depths. A Tyrolean song that my loved one used to sing beganto run through my head:
Altra volta gieri biele, Blanch' a rossa com' un flore, Ma ora no. Non son piu biele Consu
matis dal' amore.
[Once I was beautiful, white and rosy as a flower; but now I am not. I am no longer beautiful, consumed by the fire of love.]
I listened to the echo of that song as it reverberated through thedesert of my heart. I said: "Behold the happiness of man; behold mylittle Paradise; behold my queen Mab, a girl from the streets. Mymistress is no better. Behold what is found at the bottom of the glasswhen the nectar of the gods has been drained; behold the corpse oflove."
The unfortunate creature heard me singing and began to sing herself. Iturned pale; for that harsh and rasping voice, coming from the lipsof one who resembled my mistress, seemed a symbol of my experience. Itsounded like a gurgle in the throat of debauchery. It seemed to methat my mistress, having been unfaithful, must have such a voice. I wasreminded of Faust who, dancing at the Brocken with a young sorceress,saw a red mouse emerge from her throat.
"Stop!" I cried. I arose and approached her.
Let me ask you, O men of the time, bent upon pleasure, who attend theballs and the opera and who, upon retiring this night, will seek slumberwith the aid of some threadbare blasphemy of old Voltaire, some sensiblesatire by Paul Louis Courier, or some essay on economics, you who dallywith the cold substance of that monstrous water-lily that Reason hasplanted in the hearts of our cities-let me ask, if by some chance thisobscure book falls into your hands, not to smile with noble disdain orshrug your shoulders. Be not too sure that I complain of an imaginaryevil; be not too sure that human reason is the most beautiful offaculties, that there is nothing real here below but quotations on theBourse, gambling in the salon, wine on the table, the glow of health,indifference toward others, and the pleasures of the night.
For some day, across your stagnant life, a gust of wind will blow. Thosebeautiful trees, that you water with the stream of oblivion, Providencewill destroy; despair will overtake you, heedless ones, and tearswill dim your eyes. I will not say that your mistresses will deceiveyou--that would not grieve you so much as the loss of a horse--but youcan lose on the Bourse. For the first plunge is not the last, and evenif you do not gamble, bethink you that your moneyed tranquillity, yourgolden happiness, are in the care of a banker who may fail. In short, Itell you, frozen as you are, you are capable of loving something; somefibre of your being can be torn and you can give vent to cries that willresemble a moan of pain. Some day, wandering about the muddy streets,when daily material joys shall have failed, you will find yourselfseated disconsolately on a deserted bench at midnight.
O men of marble! sublime egoists, inimitable reasoners, who have nevergiven way to despair or made a mistake in arithmetic, if this everhappens to you, at the hour of your ruin you will remember Abelard whenhe lost Heloise. For he loved her more than you love your horses, yourmoney, or your mistresses; and in losing her he lost more than yourmonarch Satan would lose in falling again from the battlements ofHeaven. He loved her with a love of which the gazettes do not speak,the shadow of which your wives and your daughters do not perceive in ourtheatres and in our books. He passed half of his life kissing her whiteforehead, teaching her to sing the psalms of David and the canticles ofSaul; he had but her on earth alone; and God consoled him.
Believe me, when in your distress you think of Abelard you will not lookwith the same eye upon the rich blasphemy of Voltaire and the badinageof Courier; you will feel that human reason can cure illusions but cannot heal sorrows; that God has use for Reason but that He has not madeher a sister of Charity. You will find that when the heart of man said:"I believe in nothing, for I see nothing," it did not speak the lastword on the subject. You will look about you for something like hope,you will shake the doors of churches to see if they still swing, butyou will find them walled up; you will think of becoming Trappists, anddestiny will mock at you, and for reply will give you a bottle of wineand a courtesan.
And if you drink the wine, and take the courtesan, you will learn howsuch things come to pass.
PART II