“All the good there was in it, supposing there was some good in it, was that false pleasures were the seeds of sorrow and of bitterness which fatigued me to the point of exhaustion.” Such are the simple words spoken with reference to his youth by a man who was the most manly of any who have lived—St. Augustine. Of those who have done as I, few would say those words; all have them in their hearts; I have found no others in mine.
Returning to Paris in the month of December, I passed the winter attending pleasure parties, masquerades, suppers, rarely leaving Desgenais, who was delighted with me: not so was I with him. The more I went about, the more unhappy I became. It seemed to me after a short time that the world which had at first appeared so strange would hamper me, so to speak, at every step; yet where I had expected to see a spectre, I discovered, upon closer inspection, a shadow.
Desgenais asked what ailed me.
“And you?” I asked. “What is the matter with you? Have you lost some relative? Or do you suffer from some wound?”
At times he seemed to understand and did not question me. Occasionally we sat down at a cafe table and drank until our heads swam; or in the middle of the night took horses and rode ten or twelve leagues into the country; returning to the bath, then to table, then to gambling, then to bed; and on reaching mine, I fell on my knees and wept. That was my evening prayer.
Strange to say, I took pride in passing for what I was not, I boasted of being worse than I really was, and experienced a sort of melancholy pleasure in doing so. When I had actually done what I claimed, I felt nothing but ennui, but when I invented an account of some folly, some story of debauchery, or a recital of an orgy with which I had nothing to do, it seemed to me that my heart was better satisfied, although I know not why.
Whenever I joined a party of pleasure-seekers and visited some spot made sacred by tender associations I became stupid, went off by myself, looked gloomily at the trees and bushes as if I would like to trample them under my feet. Upon my return I would remain silent for hours.
The baleful idea that truth is nudity beset me on every occasion.
“The world,” I said to myself, “is accustomed to call its disguise virtue, its chaplet religion, its flowing mantle convenience. Honor and Morality are man’s chambermaids; he drinks in his wine the tears of the poor in spirit who believe in him; while the sun is high in the heavens he walks about with downcast eye; he goes to church, to the ball, to the assembly, and when evening has come he removes his mantle and there appears a naked bacchante with the hoofs of a goat.”
But such thoughts aroused a feeling of horror, for I felt that if the body was under the clothing, the skeleton was under the body. “Is it possible that that is all?” I asked in spite of myself. Then I returned to the city, I saw a little girl take her mother’s arm, and I became like a child.
Although I had followed my friends into all manner of dissipation, I had no desire to resume my place in the world of society. The sight of women caused me intolerable pain; I could not touch a woman’s hand without trembling. I had decided never to love again.
Nevertheless I returned from the ball one evening so sick at heart that I feared that it was love. I happened to have had beside me at supper the most charming and the most distinguished woman whom it had ever been my good fortune to meet. When I closed my eyes to sleep I saw her image before me. I thought I was lost, and I at once resolved that I would avoid meeting her again. A sort of fever seized me, and I lay on my bed for fifteen days, repeating over and over the lightest words I had exchanged with her.
As there is no spot on earth where one can be so well-known by his neighbors as in Paris, it was not long before the people of my acquaintance who had seen me with Desgenais began to accuse me of being a great libertine. In that I admired the discernment of the world: in proportion as I had passed for inexperienced and sensitive at the time of my rupture with my mistress, I was now considered corrupt and hardened. Some one had just told me that it was clear I had never loved that woman, that I had doubtless merely played at love, thereby paying me a compliment which I really did not deserve; but the truth of it was that I was so swollen with vanity I was charmed with it.
My desire was to pass as blase, even while I was filled with desires and my exalted imagination was carrying me beyond all limits. I began to say that I could not make any headway with the women; my head was filled with chimeras which I preferred to realities. In short, my unique pleasure consisted in altering the nature of facts. If a thought were but extraordinary, if it shocked common sense, I became its ardent champion at the risk of advocating the most dangerous sentiments.
My greatest fault was imitation of everything that struck me, not by its beauty but by its strangeness, and not wishing to confess myself an imitator I resorted to exaggeration in order to appear original. According to my idea, nothing was good or even tolerable; nothing was worth the trouble of turning the head, and yet when I had become warmed up in a discussion it seemed as if there was no expression in the French language strong enough to sustain my cause; but my warmth would subside as soon as my opponents ranged themselves on my side.
It was a natural consequence of my conduct. Although disgusted with the life I was leading I was unwilling to change it:
Simigliante a quells ‘nferma
Che non puo trovar posa in su le piume,
Ma con dar volta suo dolore scherma.—DANTE.
Thus I tortured my mind to give it change, and I fell into all these vagaries in order to get away from myself.
But while my vanity was thus occupied, my heart was suffering, so that ever within me were a man who laughed and a man who wept. It was a perpetual struggle between my head and my heart. My own mockeries frequently caused me great pain and my deepest sorrows aroused a desire to burst into laughter.
One day a man boasted of being proof against superstitious fears, in fact, fear of every kind. His friends put a human skeleton in his bed and then concealed themselves in an adjoining room to wait for his return. They did not hear any noise, but in the morning they found him dressed and sitting on the bed playing with the bones; he had lost his reason.
I might be that man but for the fact that my favorite bones are those of a well-beloved skeleton; they are the debris of my first love, all that remains of the past.
But it must not be supposed that there were no joyous moments in all this maddened whirl. Among Desgenais’s companions were several young men of distinction and a number of artists. We sometimes passed together delightful evenings imagining ourselves libertines. One of them was infatuated with a beautiful singer, who charmed us with her fresh and expressive voice. How many times we sat listening to her while supper was waiting! How many times, when the flagons had been emptied, one of us held a volume of Lamartine and read aloud in a voice choked by emotion! Every other thought disappeared. The hours passed by unheeded. What strange “libertines” we were! We did not speak a word and there were tears in our eyes.
Desgenais especially, habitually the coldest and dryest of men, was inexplicable on such occasions; he delivered himself of such extraordinary sentiments that he might have been a poet in delirium. But after these effusions he would be seized with furious joy. When warmed by wine he would break everything within reach; the genius of destruction stalked forth in him armed to the teeth. I have seen him pickup a chair and hurl it through a closed window.
I could not help making a study of this singular man. He appeared to me the exact type of a class which ought to exist somewhere but which was unknown to me. One could never tell whether his outbursts were the despair of a man sick of life, or the whim of a spoiled child.
During the fete, in particular, he was in such a state of nervous excitement that he acted like a schoolboy. Once he persuaded me to go out on foot with him, muffled in grotesque costumes, with masks and instruments of music. We promenaded all night, in the midst of the most frightful din of horrible sounds. We found a driver asleep on his box and unhitched his horses; then, pretending we had just come from the ball, set up a great cry. The coachman started up, cracked his whip, and his horses started off on a trot, leaving him seated on the box. That same evening we had passed through the Champs Elysees; Desgenais, seeing another carriage passing, stopped it after the manner of a highwayman; he intimidated the coachman by threats and forced him to climb down and lie flat on his stomach. He opened the carriage door and found within a young man and a lady motionless with fright. He whispered to me to imitate him, and we began to enter one door and go out by the other, so that in the obscurity the poor young people thought they saw a procession of bandits going through their carriage.
As I understand it, the men who say that the world gives experience ought to be astonished if they are believed. The world is merely a number of whirlpools, each one independent of the others; they circle in groups like flocks of birds. There is no resemblance between the different quarters of the same city, and the denizen of the Chaussee d’Antin has as much to learn at Marais as at Lisbon. It is true that these various whirlpools are traversed, and have been since the beginning of the world, by seven personages who are always the same: the first is called hope; the second, conscience; the third, opinion; the fourth, desire; the fifth, sorrow; the sixth, pride; and the seventh, man.
“But,” the reader objects, “where are the women in all this?”
Oh! creatures who bear the name of women and who have passed like dreams through a life that was itself a dream, what shall I say of you? Where there is no shadow of hope can there be memory? Where shall I seek for it? What is there more dumb in human memory? What is there more completely forgotten than you?
If I must speak of women I will mention two; here is one of them:
I ask what would be expected of a poor sewing-girl, young and pretty, about eighteen, with a romantic affair on her hands that is purely a question of love; with little knowledge of life and no idea of morals; eternally sewing near a window before which processions were not allowed to pass by order of the police, but near which a dozen young women prowled who were licensed and recognized by these same police; what could you expect of her, when after wearying her hands and eyes all day long on a dress or a hat, she leans out of that window as night falls? That dress she has sewed, that hat she has trimmed with her poor and honest hands in order to earn a supper for the household, she sees passing along the street on the head or on the body of a notorious woman. Thirty times a day a hired carriage stops before the door, and there steps out a dissolute character, numbered as is the hack in which she rides, who stands before a glass and primps, taking off and putting on the results of many days’ work on the part of the poor girl who watches her. She sees that woman draw from her pocket gold in plenty, she who has but one louis a week; she looks at her feet and her head, she examines her dress and eyes her as she steps into her carriage; and then, what can you expect? When night has fallen, after a day when work has been scarce, when her mother is sick, she opens her door, stretches out her hand and stops a passerby.
Such is the story of a girl I once knew. She could play the piano, knew something of accounts, a little designing, even a little history and grammar, and thus a little of everything. How many times have I regarded with poignant compassion that sad work of nature, mutilated by society! How many times have I followed in the darkness the pale and vacillating gleams of a spark flickering in abortive life! How many times have I tried to revive the fire that smouldered under those ashes! Alas! her long hair was the color of ashes, and we called her Cendrillon.
I was not rich enough to help her; Desgenais, at my request, interested himself in the poor creature; he made her learn over again all of which she had a slight knowledge. But she could make no appreciable progress. When her teacher left her she would fold her arms and for hours look silently across the public square. What days! What misery! One day I threatened that if she did not work she should have no money; she silently resumed her task, and I learned that she stole out of the house a few minutes later. Where did she go? God knows. Before she left I asked her to embroider a purse for me. I still have that sad relic, it hangs in my room, a monument of the ruin that is wrought here below.
But here is another case:
It was about ten in the evening when, after a riotous day, we repaired to Desgenais’s, who had left us some hours before to make his preparations. The orchestra was ready and the room filled when we arrived.
Most of the dancers were girls from the theatres.
As soon as we entered I plunged into the giddy whirl of the waltz. That delightful exercise has always been dear to me; I know of nothing more beautiful, more worthy of a beautiful woman and a young man; all dances compared with the waltz are but insipid conventions or pretexts for insignificant converse. It is truly to possess a woman, in a certain sense, to hold her for a half hour in your arms, and to draw her on in the dance, palpitating in spite of herself, in such a way that it can not be positively asserted whether she is being protected or seduced. Some deliver themselves up to the pleasure with such modest voluptuousness, with such sweet and pure abandon, that one does not know whether he experiences desire or fear, and whether, if pressed to the heart, they would faint or break in pieces like the rose. Germany, where that dance was invented, is surely the land of love.
I held in my arms a superb danseuse from an Italian theatre who had come to Paris for the carnival; she wore the costume of a Bacchante with a robe of panther’s skin. Never have I seen anything so languishing as that creature. She was tall and slender, and while dancing with extreme rapidity, had the appearance of allowing herself to be led; to see her one would think that she would tire her partner, but such was not the case, for she moved as if by enchantment.
On her bosom rested an enormous bouquet, the perfume of which intoxicated me. She yielded to my encircling arms as would an Indian vine, with a gentleness so sweet and so sympathetic that I seemed enveloped with a perfumed veil of silk. At each turn there could be heard a light tinkling from her metal girdle; she moved so gracefully that I thought I beheld a beautiful star, and her smile was that of a fairy about to vanish from human sight. The tender and voluptuous music of the dance seemed to come from her lips, while her head, covered with a wilderness of black tresses, bent backward as if her neck was too slender to support its weight.
When the waltz was over I threw myself on a chair; my heart beat wildly: “Oh, heaven!” I murmured, “how can it be possible? Oh, superb monster! Oh! beautiful reptile! How you writhe, how you coil in and out, sweet adder, with supple and spotted skin! Thy cousin the serpent has taught thee to coil about the tree of life holding between thy lips the apple of temptation. Oh! Melusina! Melusina! The hearts of men are thine. You know it well, enchantress, with your soft languor that seems to suspect nothing! You know very well that you ruin, that you destroy; you know that he who touches you will suffer; you know that he dies who basks in your smile, who breathes the perfume of your flowers and comes under the magic influence of your charms; that is why you abandon yourself so freely, that is why your smile is so sweet, your flowers so fresh; that is why you place your arms so gently on our shoulders. Oh, heaven! what is your will with us?”
Professor Halle has said a terrible thing: “Woman is the nervous part of humanity, man the muscular.” Humboldt himself, that serious thinker, has said that an invisible atmosphere surrounds the human nerves.
I do not quote the dreamers who watch the wheeling flight of Spallanzani’s bat, and who think they have found a sixth sense in nature. Such as nature is, her mysteries are terrible enough, her powers mighty enough—that nature which creates us, mocks at us, and kills us—without our seeking to deepen the shadows that surround us. But where is the man who thinks he has lived that will deny woman’s power over us? Has he ever taken leave of a beautiful dancer with trembling hands? Has he ever felt that indefinable enervating magnetism which, in the midst of the dance, under the influence of music, and the warmth, making all else seem cold, that comes from a young woman, electrifying her and leaping from her to him as the perfume of aloes from the swinging censer?
I was struck with stupor. I was familiar with that sensation similar to drunkenness which characterizes love; I knew that it was the aureole which crowned my well-beloved. But that she should excite such heart-throbs, that she should evoke such phantoms with nothing but her beauty, her flowers, her motley costume, and a certain trick of dancing she had learned from some merry-andrew; and that without a word, without a thought, without even appearing to know it! What was chaos, if it required seven days to make such a being?
It was not love, however, that I felt, and I do not know how to describe it unless I call it thirst. For the first time I felt vibrating in my body a cord that was not attuned to my heart. The sight of that beautiful animal had aroused a responsive roar from another animal in my nature. I felt sure I could never tell that woman that I loved her, or that she pleased me, or even that she was beautiful; there was nothing on my lips but a desire to kiss her, and say to her: “Make a girdle of those listless arms and lean that head on my breast; place that sweet smile on my lips.” My body loved hers; I was under the influence of beauty as of wine.
Desgenais passed and asked what I was doing there.
“Who is that woman?” I asked.
“What woman? Of whom do you speak?”
I took his arm and led him into the hall. The Italian saw us coming and smiled. I stopped and stepped back.
“Ah!” said Desgenais, “you have danced with Marco?”
“Who is Marco?” I asked.
“Why, that idle creature who is laughing over there. Does she please you?”
“No,” I replied, “I have waltzed with her and wanted to know her name; I have no further interest in her.”
Shame led me to speak thus, but when Desgenais turned away I followed him.
“You are very prompt,” he said, “Marco is no ordinary woman. She was almost the wife of M. de———, ambassador to Milan. One of his friends brought her here. Yet,” he added, “you may rest assured I shall speak to her. We shall not allow you to die so long as there is any hope for you or any resource left untried. It is possible that she will remain to supper.”
He left me, and I was alarmed to see him approach her. But they were soon lost in the crowd.
“Is it possible,” I murmured; “have I come to this? Oh! heavens! is this what I am going to love? But after all,” I thought, “my senses have spoken, but not my heart.”
Thus I tried to calm myself. A few minutes later Desgenais tapped me on the shoulder.
“We shall go to supper at once,” said he. “You will give your arm to Marco.”
“Listen,” I said; “I hardly know what I am experiencing. It seems to me I see limping Vulcan covering Venus with kisses while his beard smokes with the fumes of the forge. He fixes his staring eyes on the dazzling skin of his prey. His happiness in the possession of his prize makes him laugh for joy, and at the same time shudder with happiness, and then he remembers his father, Jupiter, seated on high among the gods.”
Desgenais looked at me but made no reply; taking me by the arm he led me away.
“I am tired,” he said, “and I am sad; this noise wearies me. Let us go to supper, that will refresh us.”
The supper was splendid, but I could not touch it.
“What is the matter with you?” asked Marco.
I sat like a statue, making no reply and looking at her from head to foot with amazement.
She began to laugh, and Desgenais, who could see us from his table, joined her. Before her was a large crystal glass cut in the shape of a chalice, which reflected the glittering lights on its thousand sparkling facets, shining like the prism and revealing the seven colors of the rainbow. She listlessly extended her arm and filled it to the brim with Cyprian and a sweetened Oriental wine which I afterward found so bitter on the deserted Lido.
“Here,” she said, presenting it to me, “per voi, bambino mio.”
“For you and for me,” I said, presenting her my glass in turn.
She moistened her lips while I emptied my glass, unable to conceal the sadness she seemed to read in my eyes.
“Is it not good?” she asked.
“No,” I replied.
“Perhaps your head aches?”
“No.”
“Or you are tired?”
“No.”
“Ah! then it is the ennui of love?”
With these words she became serious, for in spite of herself, in speaking of love, her Italian heart beat the faster.
A scene of folly ensued. Heads were becoming heated, cheeks were assuming that purple hue with which wine suffuses the face as if to prevent shame appearing there. A confused murmur, like to that of a rising sea, could be heard all over the room; here and there eyes would become inflamed, then fixed and empty; I know not what wind stirred above this drunkenness. A woman rises, as in a tranquil sea the first wave that feels the tempest’s breath foams up to announce it; she makes a sign with her hand to command silence, empties her glass at a gulp and with the same movement undoes her hair, which falls in shining tresses over her shoulders; she opens her mouth as if to start a drinking-song; her eyes are half closed. She breathes with an effort; twice a harsh sound comes from her throat; a mortal pallor overspreads her features and she drops into her chair.
Then came an uproar which lasted an hour. It was impossible to distinguish anything, either laughter, songs, or cries.
“What do you think of it?” asked Desgenais.
“Nothing,” I replied. “I have stopped my ears and am looking at it.”
In the midst of this Bacchanalian orgy the beautiful Marco remained mute, drinking nothing and leaning quietly on her bare arm. She seemed neither astonished nor affected by it.
“Do you not wish to do as they?” I asked. “You have just offered me Cyprian wine; why do you not drink some yourself?”
With these words I poured out a large glass full to the brim. She raised it to her lips and then placed it on the table, and resumed her listless attitude.
The more I studied that Marco, the more singular she appeared; she took pleasure in nothing and did not seem to be annoyed by anything. It appeared as difficult to anger her as to please her; she did what was asked of her, but no more. I thought of the genius of eternal repose, and I imagined that if that pale statue should become somnambulant it would resemble Marco.
“Are you good or bad?” I asked. “Are you sad or gay? Are you loved? Do you wish to beloved? Are you fond of money, of pleasure, of what? Horses, the country, balls? What pleases you? Of what are you dreaming?”
To all these questions the same smile on her part, a smile that expressed neither joy nor sorrow, but which seemed to say, “What does it matter?” and nothing more.
I held my lips to hers; she gave me a listless kiss and then passed her handkerchief over her mouth.
“Marco,” I said, “woe to him who loves you.”
She turned her dark eyes on me, then turned them upward, and raising her finger with that Italian gesture which can not be imitated, she pronounced that characteristic feminine word of her country:
“Forse!”
And then dessert was served. Some of the party had departed, some were smoking, others gambling, and a few still at table; some of the women danced, others slept. The orchestra returned; the candles paled and others were lighted. I recalled a supper of Petronius, where the lights went out around the drunken masters, and the slaves entered and stole the silver. All the while songs were being sung in various parts of the room, and three Englishmen, three of those gloomy figures for whom the Continent is a hospital, kept up a most sinister ballad that must have been born of the fogs of their marshes.
“Come,” said I to Marco, “let us go.”
She arose and took my arm.
“To-morrow!” cried Desgenais to me, as we left the hall.
When approaching Marco’s house, my heart beat violently and I could not speak. I could not understand such a woman; she seemed to experience neither desire nor disgust, and I could think of nothing but the fact that my hand was trembling and hers motionless.
Her room was, like her, sombre and voluptuous; it was dimly lighted by an alabaster lamp. The chairs and sofa were as soft as beds, and there was everywhere suggestion of down and silk. Upon entering I was struck with the strong odor of Turkish pastilles, not such as are sold here on the streets, but those of Constantinople, which are more powerful and more dangerous. She rang, and a maid appeared. She entered an alcove without a word, and a few minutes later I saw her leaning on her elbow in her habitual attitude of nonchalance.
I stood looking at her. Strange to say, the more I admired her, the more beautiful I found her, the more rapidly I felt my desires subside. I do not know whether it was some magnetic influence or her silence and listlessness. I lay down on a sofa opposite the alcove, and the coldness of death settled on my soul.
The pulsation of the blood in the arteries is a sort of clock, the ticking of which can be heard only at night. Man, free from exterior attractions, falls back upon himself; he hears himself live. In spite of my fatigue I could not close my eyes; those of Marco were fixed on me; we looked at each other in silence, gently, so to speak.
“What are you doing there?” she asked.
She heaved a gentle sigh that was almost a plaint.
I turned my head and saw that the first gleams of morning light were shining through the window.
I arose and opened the window; a bright light penetrated every corner of the room. The sky was clear.
I motioned to her to wait. Considerations of prudence had led her to choose an apartment some distance from the centre of the city; perhaps she had other quarters, for she sometimes received a number of visitors. Her lover’s friends sometimes visited her, and this room was doubtless only a petite maison; it overlooked the Luxembourg, the gardens of which extended as far as my eye could reach.
As a cork held under water seems restless under the hand which holds it, and slips through the fingers to rise to the surface, thus there stirred in me a sentiment that I could neither overcome nor escape. The gardens of the Luxembourg made my heart leap and banished every other thought. How many times had I stretched myself out on one of those little mounds, a sort of sylvan school, while I read in the cool shade some book filled with foolish poetry! For such, alas, were the extravagances of my childhood. I saw many souvenirs of the past among those leafless trees and faded lawns. There, when ten years of age, I had walked with my brother and my tutor, throwing bits of bread to some of the poor half-starved birds; there, seated under a tree, I had watched a group of little girls as they danced, and felt my heart beat in unison with the refrain of their childish song. There, returning from school, I had followed a thousand times the same path, lost in meditation upon some verse of Virgil and kicking the pebbles at my feet.
“Oh, my childhood! You are there!” I cried. “Oh, heaven! now I am here.”
I turned around. Marco was asleep, the lamp had gone out, the light of day had changed the aspect of the room; the hangings which had at first appeared blue were now a faded yellow, and Marco, the beautiful statue, was livid as death.
I shuddered in spite of myself; I looked at the alcove, then at the garden; my head became drowsy and fell on my breast. I sat down before an open secretary near one of the windows. A piece of paper caught my eye; it was an open letter and I looked at it mechanically. I read it several times before I thought what I was doing. Suddenly a gleam of intelligence came to me, although I could not understand everything. I picked up the paper and read what follows, written in an unskilled hand and filled with errors in spelling:
“She died yesterday. She began to fail at twelve the night before. She called me and said: ‘Louison, I am going to join my companion; go to the closet and take down the cloth that hangs on a nail; it is the mate of the other.’ I fell on my knees and wept, but she took my hand and said: ‘Do not weep, do not weep!’ And she heaved such a sigh—”
The rest was torn, I can not describe the impression that sad letter made on me; I turned it over and saw on the other side Marco’s address and the date that of the evening previous.
“Is she dead? Who is dead?” I cried going to the alcove. “Dead! Who?”
Marco opened her eyes. She saw me with the letter in my hand.
“It is my mother,” she said, “who is dead. You are not coming?”
As she spoke she extended her hand.
“Silence!” I said, “sleep, and leave me to myself.”
She turned over and went to sleep. I looked at her for some time to assure myself that she would not hear me, and then quietly left the house.
One evening I was seated before the fire with Desgenais. The window was open; it was one of the early days in March, a harbinger of spring.
It had been raining, and a light odor came from the garden.
“What shall we do this spring?” I asked. “I do not care to travel.”
“I shall do what I did last year,” replied Desgenais. “I shall go to the country when the time comes.”
“What!” I replied. “Do you do the same thing every year? Are you going to begin life over again this year?”
“What would you expect me to do?”
“What would I expect you to do?” I cried, jumping to my feet. “That is just like you. Ah! Desgenais, how all this wearies me! Do you never tire of this sort of life?”
“No,” he replied.
I was standing before an engraving of the Magdalen in the desert. Involuntarily I joined my hands.
“What are you doing?” asked Desgenais.
“If I were an artist,” I replied, “and wished to represent melancholy, I would not paint a dreamy girl with a book in her hands.”
“What is the matter with you this evening?” he asked, smiling.
“No, in truth,” I continued, “that Magdalen in tears has a spark of hope in her bosom; that pale and sickly hand on which she supports her head, is still sweet with the perfume with which she anointed the feet of her Lord. You do not understand that in that desert there are thinking people who pray. This is not melancholy.”
“It is a woman who reads,” he replied dryly.
“And a happy woman,” I continued, “with a happy book.”
Desgenais understood me; he saw that a profound sadness had taken possession of me. He asked if I had some secret cause of sorrow. I hesitated, but did not reply.
“My dear Octave,” he said, “if you have any trouble, do not hesitate to confide in me. Speak freely and you will find that I am your friend!”
“I know it,” I replied, “I know I have a friend; that is not my trouble.”
He urged me to explain.
“But what will it avail,” I asked, “since neither of us can help matters? Do you want the fulness of my heart or merely a word and an excuse?”
“Be frank!” he said.
“Very well,” I replied, “you have seen fit to give me advice in the past and now I ask you to listen to me as I have listened to you. You ask what is in my heart, and I am about to tell you.
“Take the first comer and say to, him: ‘Here are people who pass their lives drinking, riding, laughing, gambling, enjoying all kinds of pleasures; no barrier restrains them, their law is their pleasure, women are their playthings; they are rich. They have no cares, not one. All their days are days of feasting.’ What do you think of it? Unless that man happened to be a severe bigot, he would probably reply that it was the greatest happiness that could be imagined.
“‘Then take that man into the centre of the whirl, place him at a table with a woman on either side, a glass in his hand, a handful of gold every morning and say to him: ‘This is your life. While you sleep near your mistress, your horses neigh in the stables; while you drive your horses along the boulevards, your wines are ripening in your vaults; while you pass away the night drinking, the bankers are increasing your wealth. You have but to express a wish and your desires are gratified. You are the happiest of men. But take care lest some night of carousal you drink too much and destroy the capacity of your body for enjoyment. That would be a serious misfortune, for all the ills that afflict human flesh can be cured, except that. You ride some night through the woods with joyous companions; your horse falls and you are thrown into a ditch filled with mud, and it may be that your companions, in the midst of their happy shoutings will not hear your cry of anguish; it may be that the sound of their trumpets will die away in the distance while you drag your broken limbs through the deserted forest.
“‘Some night you will lose at the gaming-table; fortune has its bad days. When you return home and are seated before the fire, do not strike your forehead with your hands, and allow sorrow to moisten your cheeks with tears; do not anxiously cast your eyes about here and there as if searching for a friend; do not, under any circumstances, think of those who, under some thatched roof, enjoy a tranquil life and who sleep holding each other by the hand; for before you on your luxurious bed reclines a pale creature who loves—your money. From her you will seek consolation for your grief, and she will remark that you are very sad and ask if your loss was considerable; the tears from your eyes will concern her deeply, for they may be the cause of allowing her dress to grow old or the rings to drop from her fingers. Do not name him who won your money that night, for she may meet him on the morrow, and may make sweet eyes at him that would destroy your remaining happiness.
“‘That is what is to be expected of human frailty; have you the strength to endure it? Are you a man? Beware of disgust, it is an incurable evil; death is more to be desired than a living distaste for life. Have you a heart? Beware of love, for it is worse than disease for a debauchee, and it is ridiculous. Debauchees pay their mistresses, and the woman who sells herself has no right but that of contempt for the purchaser. Are you passionate? Take care of your face. It is shameful for a soldier to throw down his arms and for a debauchee to appear to hold to anything; his glory consists in touching nothing except with hands of marble that have been bathed in oil in order that nothing may stick to them.
“‘Are you hot-headed? If you desire to live, learn how to kill, for wine is a wrangler. Have you a conscience? Take care of your slumber, for a debauchee who repents too late is like a ship that leaks: it can neither return to land nor continue on its course; the winds can with difficulty move it, the ocean yawns for it, it careens and disappears. If you have a body, look out for suffering; if you have a soul, despair awaits you.
“‘O unhappy one! beware of men; while they walk along the same path with you, you will see a vast plain strewn with garlands where a happy throng of dancers trip the gladsome farandole standing in a circle, each a link in an endless chain. It is but a mirage; those who look down know that they are dancing on a silken thread stretched over an abyss that swallows up all who fall and shows not even a ripple on its surface. What foot is sure? Nature herself seems to deny you her divine consolation; trees and flowers are yours no more; you have broken your mother’s laws, you are no longer one of her foster children; the birds of the field become silent when you appear.
“‘You are alone! Beware of God! You are face to face with Him, standing like a cold statue upon the pedestal of will. The rain from heaven no longer refreshes you, it undermines and weakens you. The passing wind no longer gives you the kiss of life, its benediction on all that lives and breathes; it buffets you and makes you stagger. Every woman who kisses you takes from you a spark of life and gives you none in return; you exhaust yourself on phantoms; wherever falls a drop of your sweat there springs up one of those sinister weeds that grow in graveyards. Die! You are the enemy of all who love; blot yourself from the face of the earth, do not wait for old age; do not leave a child behind you, do not perpetuate a drop of your corrupted blood; vanish as does the smoke, do not deprive a single blade of living grass of a ray of sunlight.’”
When I had spoken these words I fell back in my chair, and a flood of tears streamed from my eyes.
“Ah! Desgenais,” I cried, sobbing, “this is not what you told me. Did you not know it? And if you did, why did you not tell me of it?”
But Desgenais sat still with folded hands; he was as pale as a shroud, and a tear trickled slowly down his cheek.
A moment of silence ensued. The clock struck; I suddenly remembered that it was on this hour and this day one year ago that my mistress deceived me.
“Do you hear that clock?” I cried, “do you hear it? I do not know what it means at this moment, but it is a terrible hour, and one that will count in my life.”
I was beside myself, and scarcely knew what I was saying. But at that instant a servant rushed into the room; he took my hand and led me aside, whispering in my ear:
“Sir, I have come to inform you that your father is dying; he has just been seized with an attack of apoplexy and the physicians despair of his life.”
My father lived in the country some distance from Paris. When I arrived I found a physician in the house, who said to me:
“You are too late; your father expressed a desire to see you before he died.”
I entered, and saw my father dead. “Sir,” I said to the physician, “please have everyone retire that I may be alone here; my father had something to say to me, and he will say it.”
In obedience to my order the servants left the room. I approached the bed and raised the shroud which covered the face. But when my eyes fell on that countenance, I stooped to kiss it and lost consciousness.
When I recovered, I heard some one say:
“If he requests it, you must refuse him on some pretext or other.”
I understood that they wanted to get me away from the bed of death, and so I feigned that I had heard nothing. When they saw that I was resting quietly, they left me. I waited until the house was quiet, and then took a candle and made my way to my father’s room. I found there a young priest seated near the bed.
“Sir,” I said, “to dispute with an orphan the last vigil at a father’s side is a bold enterprise. I do not know what your orders may be. You may remain in the adjoining room; if anything happens, I alone am responsible.”
He retired. A single candle on the table shone on the bed. I sat down in the chair the priest had just left, and again uncovered those features I was to see for the last time.
“What do you wish to say to me, father?” I asked. “What was your last thought concerning your child?”
My father had a book in which he was accustomed to write from day to day the record of his life. That book lay on the table, and I saw that it was open; I kneeled before it; on the page were these words and no more:
“Adieu, my son, I love you and I die.”
I did not shed a tear, not a sob came from my lips; my throat was swollen and my mouth sealed; I looked at my father without moving.
He knew my life, and my irregularities had caused him much sorrow and anxiety. He did not refer to my future, to my youth and my follies. His advice had often saved me from some evil course, and had influenced my entire life, for his life had been one of singular virtue and kindness. I supposed that before dying he wished to see me to try once more to turn me from the path of error; but death had come too swiftly; he felt that he could express all he had to say in one word, and he wrote in his book that he loved me.
A little wooden railing surrounded my father’s grave. According to his expressed wish, he was buried in the village cemetery. Every day I visited his tomb and passed part of the day on a little bench in the interior of the vault. The rest of the time I lived alone in the house in which he died, and kept with me only one servant.
Whatever sorrows the passions may cause, the woes of life are not to be compared with those of death. My first thought as I sat beside my father’s bedside was that I was a helpless child, knowing nothing, understanding nothing; I can not say that my heart felt physical pain, but I sometimes bent over and wrung my hands, as one who wakens from a long sleep.
During the first months of my life in the country I had no thought either of the past or of the future. It did not seem to be I who had lived up to that time; what I felt was not despair, and in no way resembled the terrible griefs I had experienced in the past; there was a sort of languor in every action, a sense of disgust with life, a poignant bitterness that was eating out my heart. I held a book in my hand all day long, but I did not read; I did not even know what I dreamed about. I had no thoughts; within, all was silence; I had received such a violent blow, and yet one that was so prolonged in its effects, that I remained a purely passive being and there seemed to be no reaction.
My servant, Larive by name, had been much attached to my father; he was, after my father himself, probably the best man I had ever known. He was of the same height, and wore the clothes my father had left him, having no livery.
He was of about the same age—that is, his hair was turning gray, and during the twenty years he had lived with my father, he had learned some of his ways. While I was pacing up and down the room after dinner, I heard him doing the same in the hall; although the door was open he did not enter, and not a word was spoken; but from time to time we would look at each other and weep. The entire evening would pass thus, and it would be late in the night before I would ask for a light, or get one myself.
Everything about the house was left unchanged, not a piece of paper was moved. The great leather armchair in which my father used to sit stood near the fire; his table and his books were just as he left them; I respected even the dust on these articles, which in life he never liked to see disturbed. The walls of that solitary house, accustomed to silence and a most tranquil life, seemed to look down on me in pity as I sat in my father’s chair, enveloped in his dressing-gown. A feeble voice seemed to whisper: “Where is the father? It is plain to see that this is an orphan.”
I received several letters from Paris, and replied to each that I desired to pass the summer alone in the country, as my father was accustomed to do. I began to realize that in all evil there is some good, and that sorrow, whatever else may be said of it, is a means of repose. Whatever the message brought by those who are sent by God, they always accomplish the happy result of awakening us from the sleep of the world, and when they speak, all are silent. Passing sorrows blaspheme and accuse heaven; great sorrows neither accuse nor blaspheme—they listen.
In the morning I passed entire hours in the contemplation of nature. My windows overlooked a valley, in the midst of which arose a village steeple; all was plain and calm. Spring, with its budding leaves and flowers, did not produce on me the sinister effect of which the poets speak, who find in the contrasts of life the mockery of death. I looked upon the frivolous idea, if it was serious and not a simple antithesis made in pleasantry, as the conceit of a heart that has known no real experience. The gambler who leaves the table at break of day, his eyes burning and hands empty, may feel that he is at war with nature, like the torch at some hideous vigil; but what can the budding leaves say to a child who mourns a lost father? The tears of his eyes are sisters of the rose; the leaves of the willow are themselves tears. It is when I look at the sky, the woods and the prairies, that I understand men who seek consolation.
Larive had no more desire to console me than to console himself. At the time of my father’s death he feared I would sell the property and take him to Paris. I did not know what he had learned of my past life, but I had noticed his anxiety, and, when he saw me settle down in the old home, he gave me a glance that went to my heart. One day I had a large portrait of my father sent from Paris, and placed it in the dining-room. When Larive entered the room to serve me, he saw it; he hesitated, looked at the portrait and then at me; in his eyes there shone a melancholy joy that I could not fail to understand. It seemed to say: “What happiness! We are to suffer here in peace!”
I gave him my hand, which he covered with tears and kisses.
He looked upon my grief as the mistress of his own. When I visited my father’s tomb in the morning I found him there watering the flowers; when he saw me he went away and returned home. He followed me in my rambles; when I was on my horse I did not expect him to follow me, but when I saw him trudging down the valley, wiping the sweat from his brow, I bought a small horse from a peasant and gave it to him; thus we rode through the woods together.
In the village were some people of our acquaintance who frequently visited us. My door was closed to them, although I regretted it; but I could not see any one with patience. Some time, when sure to be free from interruption, I hoped to examine my father’s papers. Finally Larive brought them to me, and untying the package with trembling hand, spread them before me.
Upon reading the first pages I felt in my heart that vivifying freshness that characterizes the air near a lake of cool water; the sweet serenity of my father’s soul exhaled as a perfume from the dusty leaves I was unfolding. The journal of his life lay open before me; I could count the diurnal throbbings of that noble heart. I began to yield to the influence of a dream that was both sweet and profound, and in spite of the serious firmness of his character, I discovered an ineffable grace, the flower of kindness. While I read, the recollection of his death mingled with the narrative of his life, I can not tell with what sadness I followed that limpid stream until its waters mingled with those of the ocean.
“Oh! just man,” I cried, “fearless and stainless! what candor in thy experience! Thy devotion to thy friends, thy admiration for nature, thy sublime love of God, this is thy life, there is no place in thy heart for anything else. The spotless snow on the mountain’s summit is not more pure than thy saintly old age; thy white hair resembles it. Oh! father, father! Give thy snowy locks to me, they are younger than my blond head. Let me live and die as thou hast lived and died. I wish to plant in the soil over your grave the green branch of my young life; I will water it with my tears, and the God of orphans will protect that sacred twig nourished by the grief of youth and the memory of age.”
After examining these precious papers, I classified them and arranged them in order. I formed a resolution to write a journal myself. I had one made just like that of my father’s, and, carefully searching out the minor details of his life, I tried to conform my life to his. Thus, whenever I heard the clock strike the hour, tears came to my eyes: “This,” said I, “is what my father did at this hour,” and whether it was reading, walking, or eating, I never failed to follow his example. Thus I accustomed myself to a calm and regular life; there was an indefinable charm about this orderly conduct that did me good. I went to bed with a sense of comfort and happiness such as I had not known for a long time. My father spent much of his time about the garden; the rest of the day was devoted to walking and study, a nice adjustment of bodily and mental exercise.
At the same time I followed his example in doing little acts of benevolence among the unfortunate. I began to search for those who were in need of my assistance, and there were many of them in the valley. I soon became known among the poor; my message to them was: “When the heart is good, sorrow is sacred!” For the first time in my life I was happy; God blessed my tears and sorrow taught me virtue.
One evening, as I was walking under a row of lindens at the entrance to the village, I saw a young woman come from a house some distance from the road. She was dressed simply and veiled so that I could not see her face; but her form and her carriage seemed so charming that I followed her with my eyes for some time. As she was crossing a field, a white goat, straying at liberty through the grass, ran to her side; she caressed it softly, and looked about as if searching for some favorite plants to feed to it. I saw near me some wild mulberry; I plucked a branch and stepped up to her holding it in my hand. The goat watched my approach with apprehension; he was afraid to take the branch from my hand. His mistress made him a sign as if to encourage him, but he looked at her with an air of anxiety; she then took the branch from my hand, and the goat promptly accepted it from hers. I bowed, and she passed on her way.
On my return home I asked Larive if he knew who lived in the house I described to him; it was a small house, modest in appearance, with a garden. He recognized it; there were but two people in the house, an old woman who was very religious, and a young woman whose name was Madame Pierson. It was she I had seen. I asked him who she was, and if she ever came to see my father. He replied that she was a widow, that she led a retired life, and that she had visited my father, but rarely. When I had learned all he knew, I returned to the lindens and sat down on a bench.
I do not know what feeling of sadness came over me as I saw the goat approaching me. I arose from my seat, and, for distraction, I followed the path I had seen Madame Pierson take, a path that led to the mountains.
It was nearly eleven in the evening before I thought of returning; as I had walked some distance, I directed my steps toward a farmhouse, intending to ask for some milk and bread. Drops of rain began to splash at my feet, announcing a thunder-shower which I was anxious to escape. Although there was a light in the place, and I could hear the sound of feet going and coming through the house, no one responded to my knock, and I walked around to one of the windows to ascertain if there was any one within.
I saw a bright fire burning in the lower hall; the farmer, whom I knew, was sitting near his bed; I knocked on the window-pane and called to him. Just then the door opened, and I was surprised to see Madame Pierson, who inquired who was there.
I waited a moment in order to conceal my astonishment. I then entered the house, and asked permission to remain until the storm should pass. I could not imagine what she was doing at such an hour in this deserted spot; suddenly I heard a plaintive voice from the bed, and turning my head I saw the farmer’s wife lying there with the seal of death on her face.
Madame Pierson, who had followed me, sat down before the old man who was bowed with sorrow; she made me a sign to make no noise as the sick woman was sleeping. I took a chair and sat in a corner until the storm passed.
While I sat there I saw her rise from time to time and whisper something to the farmer. One of the children, whom I took upon my knee, said that she had been coming every night since the mother’s illness. She performed the duties of a sister of charity; there was no one else in the country who could do it; there was but one physician, and he was densely ignorant.
“That is Brigitte la Rose,” said the child; “don’t you know her?”
“No,” I replied in a low voice. “Why do you call her by such a name?”
He replied that he did not know, unless it was because she had been rosy and the name had clung to her.
As Madame Pierson had laid aside her veil I could see her face; when the child left me I raised my head. She was standing near the bed, holding in her hand a cup, which she was offering the sick woman who had awakened. She appeared to be pale and thin; her hair was ashen blond. Her beauty was not of the regular type. How shall I express it? Her large dark eyes were fixed on those of her patient, and those eyes that shone with approaching death returned her gaze. There was in that simple exchange of kindness and gratitude a beauty that can not be described.
The rain was falling in torrents; a heavy darkness settled over the lonely mountain-side, pierced by occasional flashes of lightning. The noise of the storm, the roaring of the wind, the wrath of the unchained elements made a deep contrast with the religious calm which prevailed in the little cottage. I looked at the wretched bed, at the broken windows, the puffs of smoke forced from the fire by the tempest; I observed the helpless despair of the farmer, the superstitious terror of the children, the fury of the elements besieging the bed of death; and in the midst of all, seeing that gentle, pale-faced woman going and coming, bravely meeting the duties of the moment, regardless of the tempest and of our presence, it seemed to me there was in that calm performance something more serene than the most cloudless sky, something, indeed, superhuman about this woman who, surrounded by such horrors, did not for an instant lose her faith in God.
What kind of woman is this, I wondered; whence comes she, and how long has she been here? A long time, since they remember when her cheeks were rosy. How is it I have never heard of her? She comes to this spot alone and at this hour? Yes. She has traversed these mountains and valleys through storm and fair weather, she goes hither and thither bearing life and hope wherever they fail, holding in her hand that fragile cup, caressing her goat as she passes. And this is what has been going on in this valley while I have been dining and gambling; she was probably born here, and will be buried in a corner of the cemetery, by the side of her father. Thus will that obscure woman die, a woman of whom no one speaks and of whom the children say: “Don’t you know her?”
I can not express what I experienced; I sat quietly in my corner scarcely breathing, and it seemed to me that if I had tried to assist her, if I had reached out my hand to spare her a single step, I should have been guilty of sacrilege, I should have touched sacred vessels.
The storm lasted two hours. When it subsided the sick woman sat up in her bed and said that she felt better, that the medicine she had taken had done her good. The children ran to the bedside, looking up into their mother’s face with great eyes that expressed both surprise and joy.
“I am very sure you are better,” said the husband, who had not stirred from his seat, “for we have had a mass celebrated, and it cost us a large sum.”
At that coarse and stupid expression I glanced at Madame Pierson; her swollen eyes, her pallor, her attitude, all clearly expressed fatigue and the exhaustion of long vigils.
“Ah! my poor man!” said the farmer’s wife, “may God reward you!”
I could hardly contain myself, I was so angered by the stupidity of these brutes who were capable of crediting the work of charity to the avarice of a cure.
I was about to reproach them for their ingratitude and treat them as they deserved, when Madame Pierson took one of the children in her arms and said, with a smile:
“You may kiss your mother, for she is saved.”
I stopped when I heard these words.
Never was the simple contentment of a happy and benevolent heart painted in such beauty on so sweet a face. Fatigue and pallor seemed to vanish, she became radiant with joy.
A few minutes later Madame Pierson told the children to call the farmer’s boy to conduct her home. I advanced to offer my services; I told her that it was useless to awaken the boy as I was going in the same direction, and that she would do me an honor by accepting my offer. She asked me if I was not Octave de T————.
I replied that I was, and that she doubtless remembered my father. It struck me as strange that she should smile at that question; she cheerfully accepted my arm and we set out on our return.
We walked along in silence; the wind was going down; the trees quivered gently, shaking the rain from the boughs. Some distant flashes of lightning could still be seen; the perfume of humid verdure filled the warm air. The sky soon cleared and the moon illumined the mountain.
I could not help thinking of the whimsicalness of chance, which had seen fit to make me the solitary companion of a woman of whose existence I knew nothing a few hours before. She had accepted me as her escort on account of the name I bore, and leaned on my arm with quiet confidence. In spite of her distraught air it seemed to me that this confidence was either very bold or very simple; and she must needs be either the one or the other, for at each step I felt my heart becoming at once proud and innocent.
We spoke of the sick woman she had just quitted, of the scenes along the route; it did not occur to us to ask the questions incident to a new acquaintance. She spoke to me of my father, and always in the same tone I had noted when I first revealed my name—that is, cheerfully, almost gayly. By degrees I thought I understood why she did this, observing that she spoke thus of all, both living and dead, of life and of suffering and death. It was because human sorrows had taught her nothing that could accuse God, and I felt the piety of her smile.
I told her of the solitary life I was leading. Her aunt, she said, had seen more of my father than she, as they had sometimes played cards together after dinner. She urged me to visit them, assuring me a welcome.
When about half way home she complained of fatigue and sat down to rest on a bench that the heavy foliage had protected from the rain. I stood before her and watched the pale light of the moon playing on her face. After a moment’s silence she arose and, in a constrained manner, observed:
“Of what are you thinking? It is time for us to think of returning.”
“I was wondering,” I replied, “why God created you, and I was saying to myself that it was for the sake of those who suffer.”
“That is an expression that, coming from you, I can not look upon except as a compliment.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because you appear to be very young.”
“It sometimes happens,” I said, “that one is older than the face would seem to indicate.”
“Yes,” she replied, smiling, “and it sometimes happens that one is younger than his words would seem to indicate.”
“Have you no faith in experience?”
“I know that it is the name most young men give to their follies and their disappointments; what can one know at your age?”
“Madame, a man of twenty may know more than a woman of thirty. The liberty which men enjoy enables them to see more of life and its experiences than women; they go wherever they please, and no barrier restrains them; they test life in all its phases. When inspired by hope, they press forward to achievement; what they will they accomplish. When they have reached the end, they return; hope has been lost on the route, and happiness has broken its word.”
As I was speaking we reached the summit of a little hill which sloped down to the valley; Madame Pierson, yielding to the downward tendency, began to trip lightly down the incline. Without knowing why, I did the same, and we ran down the hill, arm in arm, the long grass under our feet retarded our progress. Finally, like two birds, spent with flight, we reached the foot of the mountain.
“Behold!” cried Madame Pierson, “just a short time ago I was tired, but now I am rested. And, believe me,” she added, with a charming smile, “you should treat your experience as I have treated my fatigue. We have made good time, and shall enjoy supper the more on that account.”
I went to see her in the morning. I found her at the piano, her old aunt at the window sewing, the little room filled with flowers, the sunlight streaming through the blinds, a large bird-cage at her side.
I expected to find her something of a religieuse, at least one of those women of the provinces who know nothing of what happens two leagues away, and who live in a certain narrow circle from which they never escape. I confess that such isolated life, which is found here and there in small towns, under a thousand unknown roofs, had always had on me the effect of stagnant pools of water; the air does not seem respirable: in everything on earth that is forgotten, there is something of death.
On Madame Pierson’s table were some papers and new books; they appeared as if they had not been more than touched. In spite of the simplicity of everything around her, of furniture and dress, it was easy to recognize mode, that is to say, life; she did not live for this alone, but that goes without saying. What struck me in her taste was that there was nothing bizarre, everything breathed of youth and pleasantness.
Her conversation indicated a finished education; there was no subject on which she could not speak well and with ease. While admitting that she was naive, it was evident that she was at the same time profound in thought and fertile in resource; an intelligence at once broad and free soared gently over a simple heart and over the habits of a retired life. The sea-swallow, whirling through the azure heavens, soars thus over the blade of grass that marks its nest.
We talked of literature, music, and even politics. She had visited Paris during the winter; from time to time she dipped into the world; what she saw there served as a basis for what she divined.
But her distinguishing trait was gayety, a cheerfulness that, while not exactly joy itself, was constant and unalterable; it might be said that she was born a flower, and that her perfume was gayety.
Her pallor, her large dark eyes, her manner at certain moments, all led me to believe that she had suffered. I know not what it was that seemed to say that the sweet serenity of her brow was not of this world but had come from God, and that she would return it to Him spotless in spite of man; and there were times when she reminded one of the careful housewife, who, when the wind blows, holds her hand before the candle.
After I had been in the house half an hour I could not help saying what was in my heart. I thought of my past life, of my disappointment and my ennui; I walked to and fro, breathing the fragrance of the flowers and looking at the sun. I asked her to sing, and she did so with good grace. In the mean time I leaned on the window-sill and watched the birds flitting about the garden. A saying of Montaigne’s came into my head: “I neither love nor esteem sadness, although the world has invested it, at a given price, with the honor of its particular favor. They dress up in it wisdom, virtue, conscience. Stupid and absurd adornment.”
“What happiness!” I cried, in spite of myself. “What repose! What joy! What forgetfulness of self!”
The good aunt raised her head and looked at me with an air of astonishment; Madame Pierson stopped short. I became red as fire when conscious of my folly, and sat down without a word.
We went out into the garden. The white goat I had seen the evening before was lying in the grass; it came up to her and followed us about the garden.
When we reached the end of the garden walk, a large young man with a pale face, clad in a kind of black cassock, suddenly appeared at the railing. He entered without knocking and bowed to Madame Pierson; it seemed to me that his face, which I considered a bad omen, darkened a little when he saw me. He was a priest I had often seen in the village, and his name was Mercanson; he came from St. Sulpice and was related to the cure of the parish.
He was large and at the same time pale, a thing which always displeases me and which is, in fact, unpleasant; it impresses me as a sort of diseased healthfulness. Moreover, he had the slow yet jerky way of speaking that characterizes the pedant. Even his manner of walking, which was not that of youth and health, repelled me; as for his glance, it might be said that he had none. I do not know what to think of a man whose eyes have nothing to say. These are the signs which led me to an unfavorable opinion of Mercanson, an opinion which was unfortunately correct.
He sat down on a bench and began to talk about Paris, which he called the modern Babylon. He had been there, he knew every one; he knew Madame de B———, who was an angel; he had preached sermons in her salon and was listened to on bended knee. (The worst of this was that it was true.) One of his friends, who had introduced him there, had been expelled from school for having seduced a girl; a terrible thing to do, very sad. He paid Madame Pierson a thousand compliments for her charitable deeds throughout the country; he had heard of her benefactions, her care for the sick, her vigils at the bed of suffering and of death. It was very beautiful and noble; he would not fail to speak of it at St. Sulpice. Did he not seem to say that he would not fail to speak of it to God?
Wearied by this harangue, in order to conceal my rising disgust, I sat down on the grass and began to play with the goat. Mercanson turned on me his dull and lifeless eye:
“The celebrated Vergniaud,” said he, “was afflicted with the habit of sitting on the ground and playing with animals.”
“It is a habit that is innocent enough,” I replied. “If there were none worse the world would get along very well, without so much meddling on the part of others.”
My reply did not please him; he frowned and changed the subject. He was charged with a commission; his uncle the cure had spoken to him of a poor devil who was unable to earn his daily bread. He lived in such and such a place; he had been there himself and was interested in him; he hoped that Madame Pierson—
I was looking at her while he was speaking, wondering what reply she would make and hoping she would say something in order to efface the memory of the priest’s voice with her gentle tones. She merely bowed and he retired.
When he had gone our gayety returned. We entered a greenhouse in the rear of the garden.
Madame Pierson treated her flowers as she did her birds and her peasants: everything about her must be well cared for, each flower must have its drop of water and ray of sunlight in order that it might be gay and happy as an angel; so nothing could be in better condition than her little greenhouse. When we had made the round of the building, she said:
“This is my little world; you have seen all I possess, and my domain ends here.”
“Madame,” I said, “as my father’s name has secured for me the favor of admittance here, permit me to return, and I will believe that happiness has not entirely forgotten me.”
She extended her hand and I touched it with respect, not daring to raise it to my lips.
I returned home, closed my door and retired. There danced before my eyes a little white house; I saw myself walking through the village and knocking at the garden gate. “Oh, my poor heart!” I cried. “God be praised, you are still young, you are still capable of life and of love!”
One evening I was with Madame Pierson. More than three months had passed, during which I had seen her almost every day; and what can I say of that time except that I saw her? “To be with those we love,” said Bruyere, “suffices; to dream, to talk to them, not to talk to them, to think of them, to think of the most indifferent things, but to be near them, that is all.”
I loved. During the three months we had taken many long walks; I was initiated into the mysteries of her modest charities; we passed through dark streets, she on her pony, I on foot, a small stick in my hand; thus half conversing, half dreaming, we went from cottage to cottage. There was a little bench near the edge of the wood where I was accustomed to rest after dinner; we met here regularly, as though by chance. In the morning, music, reading; in the evening, cards with the aunt as in the days of my father; and she always there, smiling, her presence filling my heart. By what road, O Providence! have you led me? What irrevocable destiny am I to accomplish? What! a life so free, an intimacy so charming, so much repose, such buoyant hope! O God! Of what do men complain? What is there sweeter than love?
To live, yes, to feel intensely, profoundly, that one exists, that one is a sentient man, created by God, that is the first, the greatest gift of love. We can not deny, however, that love is a mystery, inexplicable, profound. With all the chains, with all the pains, and I may even say, with all the disgust with which the world has surrounded it, buried as it is under a mountain of prejudices which distort and deprave it, in spite of all the ordure through which it has been dragged, love, eternal and fatal love, is none the less a celestial law as powerful and as incomprehensible as that which suspends the sun in the heavens.
What is this mysterious bond, stronger and more durable than iron, that can neither be seen nor touched? What is there in meeting a woman, in looking at her, in speaking one word to her, and then never forgetting her? Why this one rather than that one? Invoke the aid of reason, of habit, of the senses, the head, the heart, and explain it if you can. You will find nothing but two bodies, one here, the other there, and between them, what? Air, space, immensity. O blind fools! who fondly imagine yourselves men, and who reason of love! Have you talked with it? No, you have felt it. You have exchanged a glance with a passing stranger, and suddenly there flies out from you something that can not be defined, that has no name known to man. You have taken root in the ground like the seed concealed in the turf which feels the life within it, and which is on its way to maturity.
We were alone, the window was open, the murmur of a little fountain came to us from the garden. O God! would that I could count, drop by drop, all the water that fell while we were sitting there, while she was talking and I was answering. It was there that I became intoxicated with her to the point of madness.
It is said that there is nothing so rapid as a feeling of antipathy, but I believe that the road to love is more swiftly traversed. How priceless the slightest words! What signifies the conversation, when you listen for the heart to answer? What sweetness in the glance of a woman who begins to attract you! At first it seems as though everything that passes between you is timid and tentative, but soon there is born a strange joy, an echo answers you; you know a dual life. What a touch! What a strange attraction! And when love is sure of itself and knows response in the object beloved, what serenity in the soul! Words die on the lips, for each one knows what the other is about to say before utterance has shaped the thought. Souls expand, lips are silent. Oh! what silence! What forgetfulness of all!
Although my love began the first day and had since grown to ardor, the respect I felt for Madame Pierson sealed my lips. If she had been less frank in permitting me to become her friend, perhaps I should have been more bold, for she had made such a strong impression on me, that I never quitted her without transports of love. But there was something in the frankness and the confidence she placed in me that checked me; moreover, it was in my father’s name that I had been treated as a friend. That consideration rendered me still more respectful, and I resolved to prove worthy of that name.
To talk of love, they say, is to make love. We rarely spoke of it. Every time I happened to touch the subject Madame Pierson led the conversation to some other topic. I did not discern her motive, but it was not prudery; it seemed to me that at such times her face took on a stern aspect, and a wave of feeling, even of suffering, passed over it. As I had never questioned her about her past life and was unwilling to do so, I respected her obvious wishes.
Sunday there was dancing in the village; she was almost always there. On those occasions her toilet, although quite simple, was more elegant than usual; there was a flower in her hair, a bright ribbon, or some such bagatelle; but there was something youthful and fresh about her. The dance, which she loved for itself as an amusing exercise, seemed to inspire her with a frolicsome gayety. Once launched on the floor it seemed to me she allowed herself more liberty than usual, that there was an unusual familiarity. I did not dance, being still in mourning, but I managed to keep near her, and seeing her in such good humor, I was often tempted to confess my love.
But for some strange reason, whenever I thought of it, I was seized with an irresistible feeling of fear; the idea of an avowal was enough to render me serious in the midst of gayety. I conceived the idea of writing to her, but burned the letters before they were half finished.
That evening I dined with her, and looked about me at the many evidences of a tranquil life; I thought of the quiet life that I was leading, of my happiness since I had known her, and said to myself: “Why ask for more? Does not this suffice? Who knows, perhaps God has nothing more for you? If I should tell her that I love her, what would happen? Perhaps she would forbid me the pleasure of seeing her. Would I, in speaking the words, make her happier than she is to-day? Would I be happier myself?”
I was leaning on the piano, and as I indulged in these reflections sadness took possession of me. Night was coming on and she lighted a candle; while returning to her seat she noticed a tear in my eye.
“What is the matter?” she asked.
I turned aside my head.
I sought an excuse, but could find none; I was afraid to meet her glance. I arose and stepped to the window. The air was balmy, the moon was rising beyond those lindens where I had first met her. I fell into a profound revery; I even forgot that she was present and, extending my arms toward heaven, a sob welled up from my heart.
She arose and stood behind me.
“What is it?” she again asked.
I replied that the sight of that valley stretching out beneath us had recalled my father’s death; I took leave of her and went out.
Why I decided to silence my love I can not say. Nevertheless, instead of returning home, I began to wander about the woods like a fool. Whenever I found a bench I sat down only to rise precipitately. Toward midnight I approached Madame Pierson’s house; she was at the window. Seeing her there I began to tremble and tried to retrace my steps, but I was fascinated; I advanced gently and sadly and sat down beneath her window.
I do not know whether she recognized me; I had been there some time when I heard her sweet, fresh voice singing the refrain of a romance, and at the same instant a flower fell on my shoulder. It was a rose she had worn that evening on her bosom; I picked it up and pressed it to my lips.
“Who is there at this hour? Is it you?”
She called me by name. The gate leading into the garden was open; I arose without replying and entered it, I stopped before a plot of grass in the centre of the garden; I was walking like a somnambulist, without knowing what I was doing.
Suddenly I saw her at the door opening into the garden; she seemed to be undecided and looked attentively at the rays of the moon. She made a few steps toward me and I advanced to meet her. I could not speak, I fell on my knees before her and seized her hand.
“Listen to me,” she said; “I know all; but if it has come to that, Octave, you must go away. You come here every day and you are always welcome, are you not? Is not that enough? What more can I do for you? My friendship you have won; I wish you had been able to keep yours a little longer.”
When Madame Pierson had spoken these words she waited in silence as though expecting a reply. As I remained overwhelmed with sadness, she gently withdrew her hand, stepped back, waited a moment longer and then reentered the house.
I remained kneeling on the grass. I had been expecting what she said; my resolution was soon taken, and I decided to go away. I arose, my heart bleeding but firm. I looked at the house, at her window; I opened the garden-gate and placed my lips on the lock as I passed out.
When I reached home I told Larive to make what preparations were necessary, as I would set out in the morning. The poor fellow was astonished, but I made him a sign to obey and ask no questions. He brought a large trunk and busied himself with preparations for departure.
It was five o’clock in the morning and day was beginning to break when I asked myself where I was going. At that thought, which had not occurred to me before, I experienced a profound feeling of discouragement. I cast my eyes over the country, scanning the horizon. A sense of weakness took possession of me; I was exhausted with fatigue. I sat down in a chair and my ideas became confused; I bore my hand to my forehead and found it bathed in sweat. A violent fever made my limbs tremble; I could hardly reach my bed with Larive’s assistance. My thoughts were so confused that I had no recollection of what had happened. The day passed; toward evening I heard the sound of instruments. It was the Sunday dance, and I asked Larive to go and see if Madame Pierson was there. He did not find her; I sent him to her house. The blinds were closed, and a servant informed him that Madame Pierson and her aunt had gone to spend some days with a relative who lived at N———, a small town some distance north. He handed me a letter that had been given him. It was couched in the following terms:
“I have known you three months, and for one month have noticed that
you feel for me what at your age is called love. I thought I
detected on your part a resolution to conceal this from me and
conquer yourself. I already esteemed you, this enhanced my respect.
I do not reproach you for the past, nor for the weakness of your
will.
“What you take for love is nothing more than desire. I am well
aware that many women seek to arouse it; it would be better if they
did not feel the necessity of pleasing those who approach them.
Such a feeling is a dangerous thing, and I have done wrong in
entertaining it with you.
“I am some years older than you, and ask you not to try to see me
again. It would be vain for you to try to forget the weakness of a
moment; what has passed between us can neither be repeated nor
forgotten.
“I do not take leave of you without sorrow; I expect to be absent
some time; if, when I return, I find that you have gone away, I
shall appreciate your action as the final evidence of your
friendship and esteem.
“BRIGITTE PIERSON.”
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