The Confession of a Child of the Century

by Alfred de Musset

"Poor boy!" murmured Brigitte; "you do not want to go?"

"No, I shall not go except with my mistress and you are not that now. I have struggled, I have suffered, I have eaten my own heart long enough. It is time for day to break, I have loved long enough in the night. Yes or no, will you answer me?"

"No."

"As you please; I will wait."

I sat down on the other side of the room determined not to rise until I had learned what I wished to know. She appeared to be reflecting and walked back and forth before me.

I followed her with an eager eye, while her silence gradually increased my anger. I was unwilling to have her perceive it and was undecided what to do. I opened the window.

"You may drive off," I called to those below, "and I will see that you are paid. I shall not start to-night."

"Poor boy!" repeated Brigitte. I quietly closed the window and sat down as though I had not heard her; but I was so furious with rage that I could hardly restrain myself. That cold silence, that negative force, exasperated me to the last point. Had I been really deceived and convinced of the guilt of the woman I loved, I could not have suffered more. As I had condemned myself to remain in Paris, I reflected that I must compel Brigitte to speak at any price. In vain, I tried to think of some means of forcing her to enlighten me; for such power, I would have given all I possessed. What could I do or say? She sat there calm and unruffled looking at me with sadness. I heard the sound of the horses' hoofs on the pavement as the carriage drew out of the court. I had merely to turn my hand to call them back, but it seemed to me that there was something irrevocable about their departure. I slipped the bolt on the door; something whispered in my ear: "You are face to face with the woman who must give you life or death."

While thus buried in thought, I tried to invent some expedient that would lead to the truth, I recalled one of Diderot's romances in which a woman, jealous of her lover, resorted to a novel plan, for the purpose of clearing away her doubts. She told him that she no longer loved him and that she wished to leave him. The Marquis des Arcis, the name of the lover, falls into the trap, and confesses that he, himself, has tired of the liaison. That piece of strategy, which I had read at too early an age, had struck me as being very skilful and the recollection of it at this moment made me smile. "Who knows?" said I to myself, "if I should try this with Brigitte, she might be deceived and tell me her secret."

My anger had become furious when the idea of resorting to such trickery occurred to me. Was it so difficult to make a woman speak in spite of herself? This woman was my mistress; I must be very weak if I could not gain my point. I turned over on the sofa with an air of indifference.