La confession d'un enfant du siècle. English

  CHAPTER IV. THE PATH OF DESPAIR

  The next morning the first question that occurred to my mind was: "Whatshall I do?"

  I had no occupation. I had studied medicine and law without being ableto decide on either of the two careers; I had worked for a banker forsix months, and my services were so unsatisfactory that I was obligedto resign to avoid being discharged. My studies had been varied butsuperficial; my memory was active but not retentive.

  My only treasure, after love, was reserve. In my childhood I had devotedmyself to a solitary way of life, and had, so to speak, consecrated myheart to it. One day my father, solicitous about my future, spoke to meof several careers among which he allowed me to choose. I was leaning onthe window-sill, looking at a solitary poplar-tree that was swayingin the breeze down in the garden. I thought over all the variousoccupations and wondered which one I should choose. I turned them allover, one after another, in my mind, and then, not feeling inclined toany of them, I allowed my thoughts to wander. Suddenly it seemed tome that I felt the earth move, and that a secret, invisible force wasslowly dragging me into space and becoming tangible to my senses. Isaw it mount into the sky; I seemed to be on a ship; the poplar near mywindow resembled a mast; I arose, stretched out my arms, and cried:

  "It is little enough to be a passenger for one day on this ship floatingthrough space; it is little enough to be a man, a black point on thatship; I will be a man, but not any particular kind of man."

  Such was the first vow that, at the age of fourteen, I pronounced in theface of nature, and since then I have done nothing, except in obedienceto my father, never being able to overcome my repugnance.

  I was therefore free, not through indolence but by choice; loving,moreover, all that God had made and very little that man had made. Oflife I knew nothing but love, of the world only my mistress, and Idid not care to know anything more. So, falling in love upon leavingcollege, I sincerely believed that it was for life, and every otherthought disappeared.

  My life was indolent. I was accustomed to pass the day with my mistress;my greatest pleasure was to take her through the fields on beautifulsummer days, the sight of nature in her splendor having ever been for methe most powerful incentive to love. In winter, as she enjoyed society,we attended numerous balls and masquerades, and because I thought of noone but her I fondly imagined her equally true to me.

  To give you an idea of my state of mind I can not do better than compareit to one of those rooms we see nowadays in which are collected andmingled the furniture of all times and countries. Our age has no impressof its own. We have impressed the seal of our time neither on our housesnor our gardens, nor on anything that is ours. On the street may be seenmen who have their beards trimmed as in the time of Henry III, otherswho are clean-shaven, others who have their hair arranged as in the timeof Raphael, others as in the time of Christ. So the homes of the richare cabinets of curiosities: the antique, the gothic, the style of theRenaissance, that of Louis XIII, all pell-mell. In short, we have everycentury except our own--a thing which has never been seen at any otherepoch: eclecticism is our taste; we take everything we find, this forbeauty, that for utility, another for antiquity, still another for itsugliness even, so that we live surrounded by debris, as if the end ofthe world were at hand.

  Such was the state of my mind; I had read much; moreover I had learnedto paint. I knew by heart a great many things, but nothing in order, sothat my head was like a sponge, swollen but empty. I fell in love withall the poets one after another; but being of an impressionable naturethe last acquaintance disgusted me with the rest. I had made of myselfa great warehouse of odds and ends, so that having no more thirst afterdrinking of the novel and the unknown, I became an oddity myself.

  Nevertheless, about me there was still something of youth: it was thehope of my heart, which was still childlike.

  That hope, which nothing had withered or corrupted and which love hadexalted to excess, had now received a mortal wound. The perfidy of mymistress had struck deep, and when I thought of it, I felt in my soul aswooning away, the convulsive flutter of a wounded bird in agony.

  Society, which works so much evil, is like that serpent of the Indieswhose habitat is under a shrub, the leaves of which afford the antidoteto its venom; in nearly every case it brings the remedy with the woundit causes. For example, the man whose life is one of routine, who hashis business cares to claim his attention upon rising, visits atone hour, loves at another, can lose his mistress and suffer no evileffects. His occupations and his thoughts are like impassive soldiersranged in line of battle; a single shot strikes one down, his neighborsclose the gap and the line is intact.

  I had not that resource, since I was alone: nature, the kind mother,seemed, on the contrary, vaster and more empty than before. Had I beenable to forget my mistress, I should have been saved. How many thereare who can be cured with even less than that. Such men are incapable ofloving a faithless woman, and their conduct, under the circumstances,is admirable in its firmness. But is it thus one loves at nineteen when,knowing nothing of the world, desiring everything, one feels, within,the germ of all the passions? Everywhere some voice appeals to him. Allis desire, all is revery. There is no reality which holds him when theheart is young; there is no oak so gnarled that it may not give birth toa dryad; and if one had a hundred arms one need not fear to open them;one has but to clasp his mistress and all is well.

  As for me, I did not understand what else there was to do but love,and when any one spoke to me of other occupations I did not reply. Mypassion for my mistress had something fierce about it, for all my lifehad been severely monachal. Let me cite a single instance. She gave meher miniature in a medallion. I wore it over my heart, a practice muchaffected by men; but one day, while idly rummaging about a shop filledwith curiosities, I found an iron "discipline whip" such as was usedby the mediaeval flagellants. At the end of this whip was a metal platebristling with sharp iron points; I had the medallion riveted to thisplate and then returned it to its place over my heart. The sharp pointspierced my bosom with every movement and caused such strange, voluptuousanguish that I sometimes pressed it down with my hand in order tointensify the sensation. I knew very well that I was committing a folly;love is responsible for many such idiocies.

  But since this woman deceived me I loathed the cruel medallion. I cannot tell with what sadness I removed that iron circlet, and what a sighescaped me when it was gone.

  "Ah! poor wounds!" I said, "you will soon heal, but what balm is therefor that other deeper wound?"

  I had reason to hate this woman; she was, so to speak, mingled with theblood of my veins; I cursed her, but I dreamed of her. What could I dowith a dream? By what effort of the will could I drown a memory of fleshand blood? Lady Macbeth, having killed Duncan, saw that the ocean wouldnot wash her hands clean again; it would not have washed away my wounds.I said to Desgenais: "When I sleep, her head is on my pillow."

  My life had been wrapped up in this woman; to doubt her was to doubtall; to deny her, to curse all; to lose her, to renounce all. I nolonger went out; the world seemed peopled with monsters, with horneddeer and crocodiles. To all that was said to distract my mind, Ireplied:

  "Yes, that is all very well, but you may rest assured I shall do nothingof the kind."

  I sat in my window and said:

  "She will come, I am sure of it; she is coming, she is turning thecorner at this moment, I can feel her approach. She can no more livewithout me than I without her. What shall I say? How shall I receiveher?"

  Then the thought of her perfidy occurred to me.

  "Ah! let her come! I will kill her!"

  Since my last letter I had heard nothing of her.

  "What is she doing?" I asked myself. "She loves another? Then I willlove another also. Whom shall I love?"

  While thinking, I heard a far distant voice crying:

  "Thou, love another? Two beings who love, who embrace, and who are notthou and I! Is such a thing possible? Are you a fool?"


  "Coward!" said Desgenais, "when will you forget that woman? Is she sucha great loss? Take the first comer and console yourself."

  "No," I replied, "it is not such a great loss. Have I not done what Iought? Have I not driven her away from here? What have you to say tothat? The rest concerns me; the bull wounded in the arena can lie downin a corner with the sword of the matador 'twixt his shoulders, and diein peace. What can I do, tell me? What do you mean by first comer? Youwill show me a cloudless sky, trees and houses, men who talk, drink,sing, women who dance and horses that gallop. All that is not life, itis the noise of life. Go, go, leave me in peace."