The Confession of a Child of the Century — Complete

CHAPTER VII. THE WISDOM OF SIRACH

Upon returning to my apartments I found a large box in the centre of the room. One of my aunts had died, and I was one of the heirs to her fortune, which was not large.

The box contained, among other things, a number of musty old books. Not knowing what to do, and being afflicted with ennui, I began to read one of them. They were for the most part romances of the time of Louis XV; my pious aunt had probably inherited them herself and never read them, for they were, so to speak, catechisms of vice.

I was singularly disposed to reflect on everything that came to my notice, to give everything a mental and moral significance; I treated events as pearls in a necklace which I tried to string together.

It struck me that there was something significant about the arrival of these books at this time. I devoured them with a bitterness and a sadness born of despair. “Yes, you are right,” I said to myself, “you alone possess the secret of life, you alone dare to say that nothing is true and real but debauchery, hypocrisy, and corruption. Be my friends, throw on the wound in my soul your corrosive poisons, teach me to believe in you.”

While buried in these shadows, I allowed my favorite poets and text-books to accumulate dust. I even ground them under my feet in excess of wrath. “You wretched dreamers!” I said to them; “you who teach me only suffering, miserable shufflers of words, charlatans, if you know the truth, fools, if you speak in good faith, liars in either case, who make fairy-tales of the woes of the human heart. I will burn the last one of you!”

Then tears came to my aid and I perceived that there was nothing real but my grief. “Very well,” I cried, in my delirium, “tell me, good and bad genii, counselors for good or evil, tell me what to do! Choose an arbiter and let him speak.”

I seized an old Bible which lay on my table, and read the first passage that caught my eye.

“Reply to me, thou book of God!” I said, “what word hast thou for me?” My eye fell on this passage in Ecclesiastes, Chapter IX:

   For all this I considered in my heart even to declare all this,
   that the righteous and the wise, and their works, are in the hand
   of God; no man knoweth either love or hatred by all that is before
   them.

   All things come alike to all: there is one event to the righteous,
   and to the wicked; to the good and to the clean, and to the unclean;
   to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not: as is the
   good, so is the sinner; and he that sweareth, as he that feareth an
   oath.

   This is an evil among all things that are done under the sun, that
   there is one event unto all: yea, also the heart of the sons of men
   is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live, and
   after that they go to the dead.

When I read these words I was astounded; I did not know that there was such a sentiment in the Bible. “And thou, too, as all others, thou book of hope!”

What do the astronomers think when they predict, at a given hour and place, the passage of a comet, that most eccentric of celestial travellers? What do the naturalists think when they reveal the myriad forms of life concealed in a drop of water? Do they think they have invented what they see and that their lenses and microscopes make the law of nature? What did the first law-giver think when, seeking for the corner-stone in the social edifice, angered doubtless by some idle importunity, he struck the tables of brass and felt in his bowels the yearning for a law of retaliation? Did he, then, invent justice? And the first who plucked the fruit planted by his neighbor and who fled cowering under his mantle, did he invent shame? And he who, having overtaken that same thief who had robbed him of the product of his toil, forgave him his sin, and, instead of raising his hand to smite him, said, “Sit thou down and eat thy fill;” when, after thus returning good for evil, he raised his eyes toward Heaven and felt his heart quivering, tears welling from his eyes, and his knees bending to the earth, did he invent virtue? Oh, Heaven! here is a woman who speaks of love and who deceives me; here is a man who speaks of friendship and counsels me to seek consolation in debauchery; here is another woman who weeps and would console me with the flesh; here is a Bible that speaks of God and says: “Perhaps; but nothing is of any real importance.”

I ran to the open window: “Is it true that you are empty?” I cried, looking up at the pale expanse of sky which spread above me. “Reply, reply! Before I die, grant that I may clasp in these arms of mine something more than a dream!”

Profound silence reigned. As I stood with arms outstretched, eyes lost in space, a swallow uttered a plaintive cry; in spite of myself I followed it with my eyes; while the swallow disappeared from sight like a flash, a little girl passed singing.