The Confession of a Child of the Century — Volume 2

by Alfred de Musset

THE RUGGED PATH OF LOVE

That evening I received from Madame Pierson a letter addressed to M. R. D., at Strasburg. Three weeks later my mission had been accomplished and I returned. During my absence I had thought of nothing but her, and I despaired of ever forgetting her. Nevertheless I determined to restrain my feelings in her presence; I had suffered too cruelly at the prospect of losing her to run any further risks. My esteem for her rendered it impossible for me to suspect her sincerity, and I did not see, in her plan of getting me to leave the country, anything that resembled hypocrisy. In a word, I was firmly convinced that at the first word of love her door would be closed to me. Upon my return I found her thin and changed. Her habitual smile seemed to languish on her discolored lips. She told me that she had been suffering. We did not speak of the past. She did not appear to wish to recall it, and I had no desire to refer to it. We resumed our old relations of neighbors; yet there was something of constraint between us, a sort of conventional familiarity. It was as if we had agreed: "It was thus before, let it still be thus." She granted me her confidence, a concession that was not without its charms for me; but our conversation was colder, for the reason that our eyes expressed as much as our tongues. In all that we said there was more to be surmised than was actually spoken. We no longer endeavored to fathom each other's minds; there was not the same interest attaching to each word, to each sentiment; that curious analysis that characterized our past intercourse; she treated me with kindness, but I distrusted even that kindness; I walked with her in the garden, but no longer accompanied her outside of the premises; we no longer wandered through the woods and valleys; she opened the piano when we were alone; the sound of her voice no longer awakened in my heart those transports of joy which are like sobs that are inspired by hope. When I took leave of her, she gave me her hand, but I was conscious of the fact that it was lifeless; there was much effort in our familiar ease, many reflections in our lightest remarks, much sadness at the bottom of it all. We felt that there was a third party between us: it was my love for her. My actions never betrayed it, but it appeared in my face. I lost my cheerfulness, my energy, and the color of health that once shone in my cheeks. At the end of one month I no longer resembled my old self. And yet in all our conversations I insisted on my disgust with the world, on my aversion to returning to it. I tried to make Madame Pierson feel that she had no reason to reproach herself for allowing me to see her; I depicted my past life in the most sombre colors, and gave her to understand that if she should refuse to allow me to see her, she would condemn me to a loneliness worse than death. I told her that I held society in abhorrence and the story of my life, as I recited it, proved my sincerity. So I affected a cheerfulness that I was far from feeling, in order to show her that in permitting me to see her, she had saved me from the most frightful misfortune; I thanked her almost every time I went to see her, that I might return in the evening or the following morning. "All my dreams of happiness," said I, "all my hopes, all my ambitions, are enclosed in the little corner of the earth where you dwell; outside of the air that you breathe there is no life for me."

She saw that I was suffering and could not help pitying me. My courage was pathetic, and her every word and gesture shed a sort of tender light over my devotion. She saw the struggle that was going on in me; my obedience flattered her pride, while my pallor awakened her charitable instinct. At times she appeared to be irritated, almost coquettish; she would say in a tone that was almost rebellious: "I shall not be here to-morrow, do not come on such and such a day." Then, as I was going away sad, but resigned, she sweetened the cup of bitterness by adding: " I am not sure of it, come whenever you please;" or her adieu was more friendly than usual, her glance more tender.

"Rest assured that Providence has led me to you," I said. "If I had not met you, I might have relapsed into the irregular life I was leading before I knew you.

"God has sent you as an angel of light to draw me from the abyss. He has confided a sacred mission to you; who knows, if I should lose you, whither the sorrow that consumes me might lead me, because of the sad experience I have been through, the terrible combat between my youth and my ennui?"

That thought, sincere enough on my part, had great weight with a woman of lofty devotion whose soul was as pious as it was ardent. It was probably the only consideration that induced Madame Pierson to permit me to see her.

I was preparing to visit her one day when some one knocked at my door, and I saw Mercanson enter, that priest I had met in the garden on the occasion of my first visit. He began to make excuses that were as tiresome as himself for presuming to call on me without having made my acquaintance; I told him that I knew him very well as the nephew of our cure, and asked what I could do for him.

He turned uneasily from one side to the other with an air of constraint, searching for phrases and fingering everything on the table before him as if at a loss what to say. Finally he informed me that Madame Pierson was ill and that she had sent word to me by him that she would not be able to see me that day.

"Is she ill? Why, I left her late yesterday afternoon, and she was very well at that time!"

He bowed.