The Confession of a Child of the Century Part 5

And at times, when seated in the corner of some salon I watched the women as they danced, some rosy, some blue, and others white, their arms bare and hair cl.u.s.tered gracefully about their shapely heads, looking like cherubim drunk with light, floating in their spheres of harmony and beauty, I would think: "Ah, what a garden, what flowers to gather, to breathe! Ah! Marguerites, Marguerites! What will your last petal say to him who plucks it? A little, a little, but not all. That is the moral of the world, that is the end of your smiles. It is over this terrible abyss that you are walking in your flower-strewn gauze; it is on this hideous truth you run like gazelles on the tips of your little toes!"

"But why take things so seriously?" said Desgenais. "That is something that is never seen. You complain because bottles become empty? There are many casks in the vaults, and many vaults in the hills. Make me a good fish-hook gilded with sweet words, with a drop of honey for bait, and quick! catch for me in the stream of oblivion a pretty consoler, as fresh and slippery as an eel; you will still have the hook when the fish shall have glided from your hands. Youth must pa.s.s away, and if I were you I would carry off the queen of Portugal rather than study anatomy."

Such was the advice of Desgenais. I made my way home with swollen heart, my face concealed under my cloak. I kneeled at the side of my bed and my poor heart dissolved in tears. What vows! what prayers! Galileo struck the earth, crying: "Nevertheless it moves!" Thus I struck my heart.

CHAPTER IX

SUDDENLY, in the midst of greatest despair youth and chance led me to commit an act that decided my fate.

I had written my mistress saying that I never wished to see her again; I kept my word, but I pa.s.sed the nights under her window, seated on a bench before her door. I could see the lights in her room, I could hear the sound of her piano, at times I saw something that looked like a shadow through the partially drawn curtains.

One night, as I was seated on the bench, plunged in frightful melancholy, I saw a belated workman staggering along the street. He muttered a few words in a dazed manner and then began to sing. He was so much under the influence of liquor that he walked at times on one side of the gutter and then on the other. Finally he fell on a bench facing another house opposite me. There he lay still, supported on his elbows, and slept profoundly.

The street was deserted, a dry wind swept the dust here and there; the moon shone through a rift in the clouds and lighted the spot where the man slept. So I found myself tete-a-tete with this man who, not suspecting my presence, was sleeping on that stone bench as peacefully as though in his own bed.

He served to divert my grief; I arose to leave him in full possession, then returned and resumed my seat. I could not leave that door at which I would not have knocked for an empire. Finally, after walking up and down for a few times I stopped before the sleeper.

"What sleep!" I said. "Surely this man does not dream. His clothes are in tatters, his cheeks are wrinkled, his hands hardened with toil; he is some unfortunate who does not have bread every day. A thousand gnawing cares, a thousand mortal sorrows await his return to consciousness; nevertheless, this evening he had a piece of money in his pocket, he entered a tavern where he purchased oblivion; he has earned enough in a week to enjoy a night of slumber and he has perhaps purchased it at the expense of his children's supper. Now his mistress can betray him, his friend can glide like a thief into his hut; I could shake him by the shoulder and tell him that he is being murdered, that his house is on fire; he would turn over and continue to sleep.

"And I, I do not sleep," I continued pacing up and down the street, "I do not sleep, I who have enough in my pocket at this moment to purchase sleep for a year; I am so proud and so foolish that I dare not enter a tavern, and I do not understand that if all unfortunates enter there, it is in order that they may come out happy. Oh! G.o.d! the juice of a grape crushed under the foot suffices to dissipate the deepest sorrow and to break all the invisible threads that the fates weave about our pathway.

We weep like women, we suffer like martyrs; in our despair it seems that the world is crumbling under our feet and we sit down in our tears as did Adam at Eden's gate. And in order to cure our wound we have but to make a movement of the hand and moisten our throats. How pitiable our grief since it can be thus a.s.suaged. We are surprised that Providence does not send angels to grant our prayers; it need not take the trouble, for it has seen our woes, it knows our desires, our pride and bitterness, the ocean of evil that surrounds us, and is content to hang a small black fruit along our paths. Since that man sleeps so soundly on his bench why do not I sleep on mine? My rival is doubtless pa.s.sing the night with my mistress; he will leave her at daybreak; she will accompany him to the door and they will see me asleep on my bench. Their kisses will not awaken me, and they will shake me by the shoulder; I will turn over on the other side and sleep on."

Thus, inspired by a fierce joy, I set out in quest of a tavern. As it was past midnight some were closed; that put me in a fury. "What!" I cried, "even that consolation is refused me!" I ran hither and thither knocking at the doors of taverns crying: "Wine! Wine!"

At last I found one open; I called for a bottle and without caring whether it was good or bad I gulped it down; a second followed and then a third. I dosed myself as with medicine, and I forced the wine down as though it had been prescribed by a physician to save my life.

The heavy fumes of the liquor, which was doubtless adulterated, mounted to my head. As I had gulped it down at a breath, drunkenness seized me promptly; I felt that I was becoming muddled, then I experienced a lucid moment, then confusion followed. Then consciousness left me, I leaned my elbows on the table and said adieu to myself.

But I had a confused idea that I was not alone in the tavern. At the other end of the room stood a hideous group with haggard faces and harsh voices. Their dress indicated that they belonged to the poorer cla.s.s but were not bourgeois; in short they belonged to that ambiguous cla.s.s, the vilest of all, which has neither fortune nor occupation, which never works except at some criminal plot, which is neither poor nor rich and combines the vices of one cla.s.s with the misery of the other.

They were disputing over a dirty pack of cards; among them I saw a girl who appeared to be very young and very pretty, decently clad, and resembling her companions in no way, except in the harshness of her voice, which was rough and broken as though it had performed the office of public crier. She looked at me closely as though astonished to see me in such a place, for I was elegantly attired. Little by little she approached my table, and seeing that all the bottles were empty, smiled.

I saw that she had fine teeth of brilliant whiteness; I took her hand and begged her to be seated; she consented with good grace and asked what we should have for supper.

I looked at her without saying a word, while my eyes began to fill with tears; she observed my emotion and inquired the cause. I could not reply.

She understood that I had some secret sorrow and forebore any attempt to learn the cause; drawing her handkerchief she dried my tears from time to time as we dined.

There was something about that girl that was at once repulsive and sweet, a singular impudence mingled with pity, that I could not understand. If she had taken my hand in the street she would have inspired a feeling of horror in me, but it seemed so strange that a creature I had never seen should come to me, and without a word, proceed to order supper and dry my tears with her handkerchief that I was rendered speechless, revolted and yet charmed. What I had done had been done so quickly that I seemed to have obeyed some impulse of despair. Perhaps I was a fool or the victim of some supernal caprice.

"Who are you?" I suddenly cried out; "what do you want of me? How do you know who I am? Who told you to dry my tears? Is this your vocation and do you think I desire you? I would not touch you with the tip of my finger.

What are you doing here? Reply at once. Is it money you want? What price do you put on your pity?"

I arose and tried to go out, but my feet refused to support me. At the same time my eyes failed me, a mortal weakness took possession of me and I fell over a chair.

"You are not well," she said, taking me by the arm, "you have drunk, like the child that you are, without knowing what you were doing. Sit down in this chair and wait until a cab pa.s.ses. You will tell me where you live and I will order the driver to take you home to your mother, since," she added, "you really find me ugly."

As she spoke I raised my eyes. Perhaps my drunkenness deceived me, or perhaps I had not seen her face clearly before, but suddenly I detected in that unfortunate a fatal resemblance to my mistress. I shuddered at the sight. There is a certain shudder that affects the hair; some say it is death pa.s.sing over the head, but it was not death that pa.s.sed over mine.

It was the malady of the age, or rather that girl was it herself; and it was she who, with her pale, half-mocking features, came and seated herself before me near the door of the tavern.

CHAPTER X

THE instant I noticed her resemblance to my mistress a frightful idea occurred to me; it took irresistible possession of my muddled mind and I put it into execution at once.

I took that girl home with me, I arranged my room just as I was accustomed to do when my mistress was with me. I was dominated by a certain recollection of past joys.

Having arranged my room to my satisfaction I gave myself up to the intoxication of despair. I probed my heart to the bottom in order to sound its depths. A Tyrolean song that my mistress used to sing began to run through my head:

Altra volta gieri biele, Blanch 'e rossa com' un flore; Ma ora no. Non son piu biele, Consumatis dal' amore.*

* Once I was beautiful, white and rosy as a flower; but now I am not. I am no longer beautiful, consumed by the fire of love.

I listened to the echo of that song as it reverberated through my heart.

I said: "Behold the happiness of man; behold my little Paradise; behold my queen Mab, a girl from the streets. My mistress is no better. Behold what is found at the bottom of the gla.s.s when the nectar of the G.o.ds has been drained; behold the corpse of love."

The unfortunate creature heard me singing and began to sing herself. I turned pale; for that harsh and rasping voice, coming from the lips of one who resembled my mistress, seemed to be a symbol of my experience. It sounded like a gurgle in the throat of debauchery. It seemed to me that my mistress, having been unfaithful, must have such a voice. I was reminded of Faust who, dancing at Brocken with a young sorceress, saw a red mouse come from her throat.

"Stop!" I cried. I arose and approached her.

Let me ask you, O, you men of the time, who are bent upon pleasure, who attend the b.a.l.l.s and the opera and who upon retiring this night will seek slumber with the aid of some threadbare blasphemy of old Voltaire, some sensible badinage of Paul Louis Courier, some essay on economics, you who dally with the cold substance of that monstrous water-lily that Reason has planted in the hearts of our cities; I beg of you, if by some chance this obscure book falls into your hands, do not smile with n.o.ble disdain, do not shrug your shoulders; do not be too sure that I complain of an imaginary evil; do not be too sure that human reason is the most beautiful of faculties, that there is nothing real here below but quotations on the Bourse, gambling in the salon, wine on the table, a healthy body, indifference toward others, and the orgies, which come with the night.

For some day, across your stagnant life, a gust of wind will blow. Those beautiful trees that you water with the stream of oblivion, Providence will destroy; you will be reduced to despair, messieurs the impa.s.sive, there will be tears in your eyes. I will not say that your mistresses will deceive you; that would not grieve you so much as the loss of your horse; but I do tell you that you will lose on the Bourse; your moneyed tranquillity, your golden happiness are in the care of a banker who may fail; in short I tell you, all frozen as you are, you are capable of loving something; some fiber of your being will be torn and you will give vent to a cry that will resemble a moan of pain. Some day, wandering about the muddy streets, when daily material joys shall have failed, you will find yourself seated disconsolately on a deserted bench at midnight.

O! men of marble, sublime egoists, inimitable reasoners who have never given way to despair or made a mistake in arithmetic, if this ever happens to you, at the hour of your ruin you will remember Abelard when he lost Heloise. For he loved her more than you love your horses, your money or your mistresses; for he lost in losing her more than your prince Satan would lose in falling again from the battlements of Heaven; for he loved her with a certain love of which the gazettes do not speak, the shadow of which your wives and your daughters do not perceive in our theaters and in our books; for he pa.s.sed half of his life kissing her white forehead, teaching her to sing the psalms of David and the canticles of Saul; for he did not love her on earth alone; and G.o.d consoled him.

Believe me, when in your distress you think of Abelard you will not look with the same eye upon the sweet blasphemy of Voltaire and the badinage of Courier; you will feel that the human reason can cure illusions but not sorrows; that G.o.d has use for Reason but He has not made her the sister of Charity. You will find that when the heart of man said: "I believe in nothing, for I see nothing," it did not speak the last word on the subject. You will look about you for something like hope, you will shake the doors of churches to see if they still swing, but you will find them walled up; you will think of becoming Trappists, and destiny will mock at you and for reply give you a bottle of wine and a courtesan.

And if you drink the wine, if you take the courtesan, you will have learned how such things come about.

PART II

CHAPTER I

AWAKENING the next morning I experienced a feeling of such deep disgust with myself, I felt so degraded in my own eyes that a horrible temptation a.s.sailed me. I leaped from bed and ordered the creature to leave my room as quickly as possible. Then I sat down and looked gloomily about the room, my eyes resting mechanically on a brace of pistols that decorated the walls.

When the suffering mind advances its hands, so to speak, toward annihilation, when our soul forms a violent resolution, there seems to be an independent physical horror in the act of touching the cold steel of some deadly weapon; the fingers stiffen in anguish, the arm grows cold and hard. Nature recoils as the condemned walks to death. I can not express what I experienced while waiting for that girl to go, unless it was as though my pistol had said to me "Think what you are about to do."

Since then I have often wondered what would have happened to me if the girl had departed immediately. Doubtless the first flush of shame would have subsided; sadness is not despair, and G.o.d has joined them in order that one should not leave us alone with the other. Once relieved of the presence of that woman, my heart would have become calm. There would remain only repentance, for the angel of pardon has forbidden man to kill. But I was doubtless cured for life; debauchery was once for all driven from my door and I would never again know the feeling of disgust with which its first visit had inspired me.

But it happened otherwise. The struggle which was going on within, the poignant reflections which overwhelmed me, the disgust, the fear, the wrath, even (for I experienced all these emotions at the same time), all these fatal powers nailed me to my chair, and, while I was thus a prey to the most dangerous delirium, the creature, standing before my mirror, thought of nothing but how best to arrange her dress and fix her hair, smiling the while. This lasted more than a quarter of an hour, during which I had almost forgotten her. Finally, some slight noise attracted my attention to her, and turning about with impatience I ordered her to leave the room in such a tone that she at once opened the door and threw me a kiss before going out.

At the same moment some one rang the bell of the outer door. I arose hastily and had only time to open the closet door and motion the creature into it when Desgenais entered the room with two friends.