Desgenais had planned a reunion of young people at his country house. The best wines, a splendid table, gaming, dancing, hunting, nothing was lacking. Desgenais was rich and generous. He combined an antique hospitality with modern ways. Moreover one could always find in his house the best books; his conversation was that of a man of learning and culture. He was a problem.
I took with me a taciturn humor that nothing could overcome; he respected it scrupulously. I did not reply to his questions and he dropped the subject; he was satisfied that I had forgotten my mistress. I went to the chase and appeared at the table, and was as convivial as the best; he asked no more.
One of the most unfortunate tendencies of inexperienced youth is to judge of the world from first impressions; but it must be confessed that there is a race of men who are also very unhappy; a race which says to youth: “You are right in believing in evil, for we know what it is.” I have heard, for example, a curious thing spoken of, a medium between good and evil, a certain arrangement between heartless women and men worthy of them—apparently love, but in reality a passing sentiment. They speak of love as of an engine constructed by a wagon-builder or a building-contractor. They said to me: “This and that are agreed upon, such and such phrases are spoken, and certain others are repeated in reply; letters are written in a prescribed manner, you kneel in a certain attitude.” All is regulated as in a parade.
This made me laugh. Unfortunately for me, I can not tell a woman whom I despise that I love her, even when I know that it is only a convention and that she will not be deceived by it. I have never bent my knee to the ground when my heart did not go with it. So that class of women known as facile is unknown to me, or if I allow myself to be taken with them, it is without knowing it, and through innate simplicity.
I can understand that one’s soul can be put aside, but not that it should be handled. That there is some pride in this, I confess, but I do not intend either to boast or abase myself. Above all things I hate those women who laugh at love, and I permit them to reciprocate the sentiment; there will never be any dispute between us.
Such women are beneath courtesans, for courtesans may lie as well as they; but courtesans are capable of love, and these women are not. I remember a woman who loved me, and who said to a man many times richer than I, with whom she was living: “I am weary of you, I am going to my lover.” That woman is worth more than many others who are not despised by society.
I passed the entire season with Desgenais, and learned that my mistress had left France; that news left in my heart a feeling of languor which I could not overcome.
At the sight of that world which surrounded and was so new to me, I experienced at first a kind of bizarre curiosity, at once sad and profound, which made me look timorously at things as does a restless horse. Then an incident occurred which made a deep impression on me.
Desgenais had with him a very beautiful woman who loved him much. One evening as I was walking with him I told him that I considered her admirable, as much on account of her attachment for him as because of her beauty. In short, I praised her highly and with warmth, giving him to understand that he ought to be happy.
He made no reply. It was his manner, for he was the dryest of men. That night when all had retired, and I had been in bed some fifteen minutes I heard a knock at my door. I supposed it was some one of my friends who could not sleep, and invited him to enter.
There appeared before my astonished eyes a woman, very pale, carrying a bouquet in her hands, to which was attached a piece of paper bearing these words “To Octave, from his friend Desgenais.”
I had no sooner read these words than a flash of light came to me. I understood the meaning of this action of Desgenais in making me this African gift. It made me think. The poor woman was weeping and did not dare dry her tears for fear I would see them. I said to her: “You may return and fear nothing.”
She replied that if she should return Desgenais would send her back to Paris. “Yes,” I replied, “you are beautiful and I am susceptible to temptation, but you weep, and your tears not being shed for me, I care nothing for the rest. Go, therefore, and I will see to it that you are not sent back to Paris.”
One of my peculiarities is that meditation, which with many is a firm and constant quality of the mind, is in my case an instinct independent of the will, and seizes me like a fit of passion. It comes to me at intervals in its own good time, regardless of my will and in almost any place. But when it comes I can do nothing against it. It takes me whither it pleases by whatever route seems good to it.
When the woman had left, I sat up.
“My friend,” I said to myself, “behold what has been sent you. If Desgenais had not seen fit to send you his mistress he would not have been mistaken, perhaps, in supposing that you might fall in love with her.
“Have you well considered it? A sublime and divine mystery is accomplished. Such a being costs nature the most vigilant maternal care; yet man, who would cure you, can think of nothing better than to offer you lips which belong to him in order to teach you how to cease to love.
“How was it accomplished? Others than you have doubtless admired her, but they ran no risk. She might employ all the seduction she pleased; you alone were in danger.
“It must be that Desgenais has a heart, since he lives. In what respect does he differ from you. He is a man who believes in nothing, fears nothing, who knows no care or ennui, perhaps, and yet it is clear that a scratch on the finger would fill him with terror, for if his body abandons him, what becomes of him? He lives only in the body. What sort of creature is he who treats his soul as the flagellants treat their bodies? Can one live without a head?
“Think of it. Here is a man who possesses one of the most beautiful women in the world; he is young and ardent; he finds her beautiful and tells her so; she replies that she loves him. Some one touches him on the shoulder and says to him: ‘She is unfaithful.’ Nothing more, he is sure of himself. If some one had said: ‘She is a poisoner,’ he would, perhaps have continued to love her, he would not have given her a kiss less; but she is unfaithful, and it is no more a question of love with him than of the star of Saturn.
“What is there in that word? A word that is merited, positive, withering, at will. But why? It is still but a word. Can you kill a body with a word?
“And if you love that body? Some one pours a glass of wine and says to you: ‘Do not love that, for you can get four for six francs.’ And it may intoxicate you!
“But Desgenais loves his mistress, since he keeps her; he must, therefore, have a peculiar fashion of loving? No, he has not; his fashion of loving is not love, and he cares no more for the woman who merits affection than for her who is unworthy. He loves no one, simply and truly.
“What has led him to this? Was he born thus? To love is as natural as to eat and to drink. He is not a man. Is he a dwarf or a giant? Is he always so impassive? Upon what does he feed, what beverage does he drink? Behold him at thirty like old Mithridates; poisons are his familiar friends.
“There is the great secret, my child, the key you must grasp. By whatever process of reasoning debauchery may be defended, it will be proven that it is natural at a given day, hour, or night, but not to-morrow nor every day. There is not a nation on earth which has not considered woman either the companion and consolation of man or the sacred instrument of life, and has not under either of these two forms honored her. And yet here is an armed warrior who leaps into the abyss that God has dug with His own hands between man and brute; as well might he deny that fact. What mute Titan is this who dares repress under the kisses of the body the love of the soul, and place on human lips the stigma of the brute, the seal of eternal silence?
“There is a word that should be studied. In it you hear the faint moan of those dismal labyrinths we know as secret societies, mysteries that the angels of destruction whisper in the ear of night as it descends upon the earth. That man is better or worse than God has made him. He is like a sterile woman, in whom nature has not completed her work, or there is distilled in the shadow of his life some venomous poison.
“Ah! yes, neither occupation nor study has been able to cure you, my friend. To forget and to learn, that is your device. You turn the leaves of dead books; you are too young for antiquities. Look about you, the pale throng of men surrounds you. The eyes of life’s sphynx glitter in the midst of divine hieroglyphics; decipher the book of life! Courage, scholar, launch out on the Styx, the deathless flood, and let the waves of sorrow waft you to oblivion or to God.”
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