The Confession of a Child of the Century

by Alfred de Musset

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 glass when the nectar of the gods 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 balls 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 noble 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 impassive, 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 passed 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 God 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 God 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 assailed 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 God 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.

The great currents that are found in the middle of the ocean resemble certain events in life. Fatality, Chance, Providence, what matters the name? Those who quarrel over the word, admit the fact. Such are not those who, speaking of Napoleon or Caesar, say: "He was a man of Providence." They apparently believe that heroes merit the attention which Heaven shows them and that the color of purple attracts gods as well as bulls.

What decides the course of these little events, what objects and circumstances, in appearance the least important, lead to changes in fortune, there is not, to my mind, a deeper abyss for the thought. There is something in our ordinary actions that resembles the little blunted arrows we shoot at targets; little by little we make of our successive results an abstract and regular entity that we call our prudence or our will. Then a gust of wind passes, and behold the smallest of these arrows, the very lightest and most futile, is carried beyond our vision, beyond the horizon, to the dwelling-place of God himself.

What a strange feeling of unrest seizes us then! What becomes of those fantoms of tranquil pride, the will and prudence? Force itself, that mistress of the world, that sword of man in the combat of life, in vain do we brandish it over our heads in wrath, in vain do we seek to ward off with it a blow which threatens us; an invisible power turns aside the point, and all the impetus of our effort, deflected into space, serves only to precipitate our fall.

Thus at the moment I was hoping to cleanse myself from the sin I had committed, perhaps to inflict the penalty, at the very instant when a great horror had taken possession of me, I learned that I had to sustain a dangerous intervention.

Desgenais was in good humor; stretching out on my sofa he began to chaff me about the appearance of my face which looked, he said, as though I had not slept well. As I was little disposed to indulge in pleasantry I begged him to spare me.

He appeared to pay no attention to me, but warned by my tone he soon broached the subject that had brought him to me. He informed me that my mistress had not only two lovers at a time, but three, that is to say she had treated my rival as badly as she had treated me; the poor boy having discovered her inconstancy made a great ado and all Paris knew it. At first I did not catch the meaning of Desgenais' words as I was not listening attentively; but when he had repeated his story three times in detail I was so stupefied that I could not reply. My first impulse was to laugh, for I saw that I had loved the most unworthy of women; but it was no less true that I loved her still. "Is it possible?" was all I could say.

Desgenais' friends confirmed all he had said. My mistress had been surprised in her own house between two lovers, and a scene that all Paris knew by heart ensued. She was disgraced, obliged to leave Paris or remain exposed to the most bitter taunts.

It was easy for me to see that in all, the ridicule expended on the subject of this woman, on my unreasonable passion for her, was premeditated. To say that she deserved severest censure, that she had perhaps committed worse sins than those with which she was charged, that was to make me feel that I had been merely one of her dupes.

All that did not please me; but Desgenais had undertaken the task of curing me of my love and was prepared to treat my disease heroically. A long friendship founded on mutual services gave him rights, and as his motive appeared praiseworthy I allowed him to have his way.

Not only did he not spare me, but when he saw my trouble and my shame increase, he pressed me the harder. My impatience was so obvious that he could not continue, so he stopped and remained silent, a course that irritated me still more.

In my turn I began to ask questions; I paced to and fro in my room. Although the recital of that story was insupportable, I wanted to hear it again. I tried to assume a smiling face and tranquil air, but in vain. Desgenais suddenly became silent after having shown himself to be a most virulent gossip. While I was pacing up and down my room he looked at me calmly as though I was a caged fox.

I can not express my feeling. A woman who had so long been the idol of my heart and who, since I had lost her, had caused me such deep affliction, the only one I had ever loved, she for whom I would weep till death, become suddenly a shameless wretch, the subject of coarse jests, of universal censure and scandal! It seemed to me that I felt on my shoulder the impression of a heated iron and that I was marked with a burning stigma.

The more I reflected, the more the darkness thickened about me. From time to time I turned my head and saw a cold smile or a curious glance. Desgenais did not leave me, he knew very well what he was doing, he knew that I might go to any length in my present desperate condition.

When he found that he had brought me to the desired point he did not hesitate to deal the finishing stroke.

"Does that story displease you?" he asked. "The best is yet to come. My dear Octave, the scene I have described took place on a certain night when the moon was shining brightly; while the two lovers were quarreling over their fair one and talking of cutting her throat as she sat before the fire, down in the street a certain shadow was seen to pass up and down before the house, a shadow that resembled you so closely that it was decided that it must be you."

"Who says that," I asked, "who has seen me in the street?"

"Your mistress herself; she has told every one about it who cared to listen, just as cheerfully as we tell you her story. She claims that you love her still, that you keep guard at her door, in short—everything you can think of; but you should know that she talks about you publicly."

I have never been able to lie, for whenever I have tried to disguise the truth my face betrayed me. Amour propre, the shame of confessing my weakness before witnesses induced me, however, to make the effort. "It is very true that I was in the street," I thought, "but if I had known that my mistress was as bad as she was, I would not have been there."

Finally I persuaded myself that I had not been seen distinctly; I attempted to deny it. A deep blush suffused my face and I felt the futility of my feint. Desgenais smiled.

"Take care," said he, "take care, do not go too far."

"But," I protested, "how did I know it, how could I know—"

Desgenais compressed his lips as though to say:

"You knew enough."

I stopped short, mumbling the remnant of my sentence. My blood became so hot that I could not continue.

"I, in the street bathed in tears, in despair; and during that time that encounter within! What! that very night! Mocked by her! Surely Desgenais you are dreaming. Is it true? Can it be possible? What do you know about it?"

Thus talking at random, I lost my head, and an irresistible feeling of wrath began to rise within me. Finally I sat down exhausted.

"My friend," said Desgenais, "do not take the thing so seriously. The solitary life you have been leading for the last two months has made you ill, I see you have need of distraction. Come to supper with me this evening, and to-morrow morning we will go to the country."

The tone in which he said this hurt me more than anything else; in vain I tried to control myself. "Yes," I thought, "deceived by that woman, poisoned by horrible suggestions, having no refuge either in work or in fatigue, having for my only safeguard against despair and ruin, a sacred but frightful grief. O God! it is that grief, that sacred relic of my sorrow that has just crumbled in my hands! It is no longer my love, it is my despair that is insulted. Mockery! She mocks at me as I weep!" That appeared incredible to me. All the memories of the past clustered about my heart when I thought of it. I seemed to see, one after the other, the specters of our nights of love; they hung over a bottomless eternal abyss, black as chaos, and from the bottom of that abyss there burst forth a shriek of laughter, sweet but mocking, that said: "Behold your reward!"

If I had been told that the world mocked at me I would have replied: "So much the worse for it," and I would not be angry; but at the same time I was told that my mistress was a shameless wretch. Thus, on one side, the ridicule was public, vouched for, stated by two witnesses who, before telling what they knew, must have felt that the world was against me; and, on the other hand, what reply could I make? How could I escape? What could I do when the center of my life, my heart itself, was ruined, killed, annihilated. What could I say when that woman for whom I had braved all, ridicule as well as blame, for whom I had borne a mountain of misery, when that woman whom I loved and who loved another, of whom I demanded no love, of whom I desired nothing but permission to weep at her door, no favor but that of vowing my youth to her memory and writing her name, her name alone, on the tomb of my hopes! Ah! when I thought of it, I felt the hand of death heavy upon me; that woman mocked me, it was she who first pointed her finger at me, singling me out to the idle crowd which surrounded her; it was she, it was those lips so many times pressed to mine, it was that body, that soul of my life, my flesh and my blood, it was from that source the injury came; yes, the last of all, the most cowardly and the most bitter, the pitiless laugh that spits in the face of grief.

The more I thought of it the more enraged I became. Did I say enraged? I do not know what passion controlled me. What I do know is that an inordinate desire for vengeance took possession of me. How could I revenge myself on a woman? I would have paid any price for a weapon that could be used against her. But I had none, not even the one she had employed; I could not pay her in her own coin.

Suddenly I noticed a shadow moving behind the curtain before the closet.
I had forgotten her.

"Listen to me!" I cried, rising. "I have loved, I have loved like a fool. I deserve all the ridicule you have subjected me to. But, by Heaven! I will show you something that will prove to you that I am not such a fool as you think."

With these words I pulled aside the curtain and exposed the interior of the closet. The girl was trying to conceal herself in a corner.

"Go in, if you choose," I said to Desgenais; "you who call me a fool for loving a woman, see how your teaching has affected me. Do you think I passed last night under the windows of ——-? But that is not all," I added, "that is not all I have to say. You give a supper to-night, and to-morrow go to the country; I am with you, and shall not leave you from now on. We shall not separate, but pass the entire day together. Are you with me? Agreed! I have tried to make of my heart the mausoleum of my love, but I will bury my love in another tomb."

With these words I sat down, marveling how indignation can solace grief and restore happiness. Whoever is astonished to learn that from that day I completely changed my course of life does not know the heart of man, and he does not understand that a young man of twenty may hesitate before taking a step, but does not retreat when he has once taken it.