CHAPTER IV. IN THE FURNACE
My heart yearned to set out and yet I delayed; some secret influencerooted me to the spot.
When Smith came I knew no repose from the time he entered the room. Howis it that sometimes we seem to enjoy unhappiness?
One day a word, a flush, a glance, made me shudder; another day, anotherglance, another word, threw me into uncertainty. Why were they bothso sad? Why was I as motionless as a statue where I had formerly beenviolent? Every evening in bed I said to myself: "Let me see; let methink that over." Then I would spring up, crying: "Impossible!" The nextday I did the same thing.
In Smith's presence, Brigitte treated me with more tenderness than whenwe 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 controlhimself. His gestures were carefully regulated; he spoke slowly andprudently, so that his occasional moments of forgetfulness seemed allthe more striking.
Was it curiosity that tormented me? I remember that one day I saw a mandrowning near the Pont Royal. It was midsummer and we were rowing on theriver; some thirty boats were crowded together under the bridge, whensuddenly one of the occupants of a boat near mine threw up his hands andfell overboard. We immediately began diving for him, but in vain; somehours later the body was found under a raft.
I shall never forget my experience as I was diving for that man. Iopened my eyes under the water and searched painfully here and therein the dark corners about the pier; then I returned to the surface forbreath, then resumed my horrible search. I was filled with hope andterror; the thought that I might feel myself seized by convulsive armsallured me, and at the same time thrilled me with horror; when I wasexhausted with fatigue, I climbed back into my boat.
Unless a man is brutalized by debauchery, eager curiosity is one of hismarked traits. I have already remarked that I felt it on the occasion ofmy 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 bonesthat lie forever at the bottom of some chance experience. It is called"knowing the world," and experience is purchased at that price. Somerecoil in terror before that test; others, feeble and affrighted,vacillate like shadows. Some, the best perhaps, die at once. The largenumber forget, and thus all float on to death.
But there are some men, who, at the fell stroke of chance, neither dienor forget; when it comes their turn to touch misfortune, otherwisecalled truth, they approach it with a firm step and outstretched hand,and, horrible to say! they mistake love for the livid corpse they havefound at the bottom of the river. They seize it, feel it, clasp it intheir arms; they are drunk with the desire to know; they no longer lookwith interest upon things, except to see them pass; they do nothingexcept doubt and test; they ransack the world as though they were God'sspies; they sharpen their thoughts into arrows, and give birth to amonster.
Roues, more than all others, are exposed to that fury, and the reasonis very simple: ordinary life is the limpid surface, that of the roueis the rapid current swirling over and over, and at times touching thebottom. Coming from a ball, for instance, where they have danced witha modest girl, they seek the company of bad characters, and spend thenight in riotous feasting. The last words they addressed to a beautifuland virtuous woman are still on their lips; they repeat them and burstinto laughter. Shall I say it? Do they not raise, for some pieces ofsilver, the vesture of chastity, that robe so full of mystery, whichrespects the being it embellishes and engirds her without touching?What idea can they have of the world? They are like comedians in thegreenroom. Who, more than they, is skilled in that delving to the bottomof things, in that groping at once profound and impious? See how theyspeak of everything; always in terms the most barren, crude, and abject;such words appear true to them; the rest is only parade, convention,prejudice. Let them tell a story, let them recount some experience, theywill always use the same dirty and material expressions. They do not say"That woman loved me;" they say: "I betrayed that woman;" they do notsay: "I love;" they say, "I desire;" they never say: "If God wills;"they say: "If I will." I do not know what they think of themselves andof such monologues as these.
Hence, of a necessity, either from idleness or curiosity, while theystrive to find evil in everything, they do not comprehend that othersstill believe in the good. Therefore they have to be so nonchalant as tostop their ears, lest the hum of the busy world should suddenly startlethem from sleep. The father allows his son to go where so many othersgo, where Cato himself went; he says that youth is but fleeting. Butwhen he returns, the youth looks upon his sister; and see what has takenplace in him during an hour passed in the society of brutal reality! Hesays 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 impure contact. It is theprowling instinct of phantoms who raise the lids of tombs; it is aninexplicable torture with which God punishes those who have sinned;they wish to believe that all sin as they have done, and would bedisappointed perhaps to find that it was not so. But they inquire, theysearch, they dispute; they wag their heads from side to side as does anarchitect who adjusts a column, and thus strive to find what they desireto find. Given proof of evil, they laugh at it; doubtful of evil, theyswear that it exists; the good they refuse to recognize. "Who knows?"Behold the grand formula, the first words that Satan spoke when he sawheaven closing against him. Alas! for how many evils are those wordsresponsible? How many disasters and deaths, how many strokes of fatefulscythes in the ripening harvest of humanity! How many hearts, how manyfamilies where there is naught but ruin, since that word was firstheard! "Who knows! Who knows!" Loathsome words! Rather than pronouncethem one should be as sheep who graze about the slaughter-house and knowit not. That is better than to be called a strong spirit, and to read LaRochefoucauld.
What better illustration 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 didI delay? What would have been the result if I had started at once onour trip? Nothing but a moment of apprehension that would have beenforgotten after travelling three days. When with me, she had no thoughtbut of me; why should I care to solve a mystery that did not threaten myhappiness?
She would have consented, and that would have been the end of it. A kisson 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 andleft 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 theteapot, I saw but one cup. No one had been in that room before me thatmorning, so the servant could not have carried away anything that hadbeen used the night before. I searched everywhere for a second cup butcould 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 assist you?"
"I retired alone; every one in the house was asleep."
I continued my search and my hands trembled. In what burlesque comedy isthere 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 thesame cup? What a brilliant idea that!
Nevertheless I found the cup and I burst into laughter, and threw iton the floor with such violence that it broke into a thousand pieces. Iground the pieces under my feet.
Brigitte looked at me without saying a word. During the two succeedingdays she treated me with a coldness that had something of contempt init, and I saw that she treated Smith with more deference and kindnessthan usual. She called him Henri and smiled on him sweetly.
"I feel that the air would do me good," she said after dinner; "shall wego to the opera, Octave? I would enjoy walking that far."
"No, I will stay here;
go without me." She took Smith's arm and wentout. I remained alone all evening; I had paper before me, and was tryingto collect my thoughts in order to write, but in vain.
As a lonely lover draws from his bosom a letter from his mistress, andloses himself in delightful revery, thus I shut myself up in solitudeand yielded to the sweet allurement of doubt. Before me were the twoempty seats which Brigitte and Smith had just occupied; I scrutinizedthem anxiously as if they could tell me something. I revolved in my mindall the things I had heard and seen; from time to time I went to thedoor and cast my eyes over our trunks which had been piled against thewall for a month; I opened them and examined the contents so carefullypacked away by those delicate little hands; I listened to the sound ofpassing carriages; the slightest noise made me tremble. I spread out onthe table our map of Europe, and there, in the very presence of all myhopes, in that room where I had conceived and had so nearly realizedthem, I abandoned myself to the most frightful presentiments.
But, strange as it may seem, I felt neither anger nor jealousy, but aterrible sense of sorrow and foreboding. I did not suspect, and yet Idoubted. The mind of man is so strangely formed that, with what he seesand in spite of what he sees, he can conjure up a hundred objects ofwoe. In truth his brain resembles the dungeons of the Inquisition, wherethe walls are covered with so many instruments of torture that one isdazed, and asks whether these horrible contrivances he sees before himare pincers or playthings. Tell me, I say, what difference is there insaying to my mistress: "All women deceive," or, "You deceive me?"
What passed through my mind was perhaps as subtle as the finestsophistry; it was a sort of dialogue between the mind and theconscience. "If I should lose Brigitte?" I said to the mind. "Shedeparts with you," said the conscience. "If she deceives me?"--"How canshe deceive you? Has she not made out her will asking for prayers foryou?"--"If Smith loves her?"--"Fool! What does it matter so long as youknow that she loves you?"--"If she loves me why is she sad?"--"Thatis her secret, respect it."--"If I take her away with me, will she behappy?"--"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 womanand he is young."--"Why does that young man turn pale when she looks athim?"--"Because he is a man and she is beautiful."--"Why, when I went tosee him did he throw himself into my arms, and why did he weep and beathis head with his hands?"--"Do not seek to know what you must remainignorant of."--"Why can I not know these things?"--"Because you aremiserable and weak, and all mystery is of God."
"But why is it that I suffer? Why is it that my soul recoils interror?"--"Think of your father and do good."--"But why am I unable todo as he did? Why does evil attract me to itself?"--"Get down on yourknees and confess; if you believe in evil it is because your ways havebeen evil."--"If my ways were evil, was it my fault? Why did thegood betray me?"--"Because you are in the shadow, would you denythe existence of light? If there are traitors, why are you one ofthem?"--"Because I am afraid of becoming the dupe."--"Why do you spendyour nights in watching? Why are you alone now?"--"Because I think,I doubt, and I fear."--"When will you offer your prayer?"--"When Ibelieve. Why have they lied to me?"--"Why do you lie, coward! at thisvery moment? Why not die if you can not suffer?"
Thus spoke and groaned within me two voices, voices that were defiantand terrible; and then a third voice cried out! "Alas! Alas! myinnocence! Alas! Alas! the days that were!"