The Confession of a Child of the Century

by Alfred de Musset

"Fool that I am!" I muttered bitterly, "fool to try to get the truth from a woman! He who undertakes such a task will earn naught but derision and will deserve it! Truth! Only he who sorts with chamber-maids knows it, only he who steals to their pillow and listens to the unconscious utterance of a dream, hears it. He alone knows it, who makes a woman of himself and initiates himself into the secrets of her cult of inconstancy! But the man who asks for it openly, he who opens a loyal hand to receive that frightful alms, he will never obtain it! They are on guard with him; for reply, he receives a shrug of the shoulders, and, if he rouses himself in his impatience, they rise in righteous indignation like an outraged vestal, while there falls from their lips the great feminine oracle that suspicion destroys love, and they refuse to pardon an accusation which they are unable to meet. Ah! just God! How weary I am! When will all this cease?"

"Whenever you please," said she coldly, "I am as tired of it as you."

"At this very moment; I leave you forever, and may time justify you! Time! Time! O what a cold lover! remember this adieu. Time! and thy beauty, and thy love, and thy happiness, where will they be? Is it thus, without regret, you allow me to go? Ah! the day when the jealous lover will know that he has been unjust, the day when he shall see proofs, he will understand what a heart he has wounded, is it not so? He will bewail his shame, he will know neither joy nor sleep; he will live only in the memory of the time when he might have been happy. But, on that day, his proud mistress will turn pale as she sees herself avenged; she will say to herself: 'If I had only done it sooner!' And believe me, if she loves him, pride will not console her."

I tried to be calm but I was no longer master of myself, and I began to pace the floor as she had done. There are certain glances that resemble the clashing of drawn swords; such glances, Brigitte and I exchanged at that moment. I looked at her as the prisoner looks at the door of his dungeon. In order to break the seal on her lips and force her to speak, I would give my life and hers.

"What do you mean?" she asked. "What do you wish me to tell you?"

"What you have in your heart. Are you cruel enough to make me repeat it?"

"And you, you," she cried, "are you not a hundred times more cruel? Ah! fool, as you say, who would know the truth! Fool that I would be if I expected you to believe it! You would know my secret, and my secret is that I love you. Fool that I am! you will seek another. That pallor of which you are the cause, you accuse it, you question it. Like a fool, I have tried to suffer in silence, to consecrate to you my resignation; I have tried to conceal my tears; you have played the spy, and you have counted them as witnesses against me. Fool that I am! I have thought of crossing seas, of exiling myself from France with you, of dying far from all who have loved me, leaning for sole support on a heart that doubts me. Fool that I am! I thought that truth had a glance, an accent, that could not be mistaken, that would be respected! Ah! when I think of it, tears choke me. Why, if it must ever be thus, induce me to take a step that will forever destroy my peace? My head is confused, I do not know where I am!"

She leaned on me weeping.

"Fool! Fool!" she repeated, in a heart-rending voice.

"And what is it you ask?" she continued. "What can I do to meet those suspicions that are ever born anew, that alter with your moods? I must justify myself, you say! For what? For loving, for dying, for despairing? And if I assume a forced cheerfulness, even that cheerfulness offends you. I sacrifice everything to follow you and you have not gone a league before you look back. Always, everywhere, whatever I may do, insults and angers! Ah! dear child, if you knew what a mortal chill comes over me, what suffering I endure in seeing my simplest words thus taken up and hurled back at me with suspicion and sarcasm! By that course, you deprive yourself of the only happiness there is in the world—perfect love. You kill all delicate and lofty sentiment in the hearts of those who love you; soon you will believe in nothing except the material and the gross; of love, there will remain for you only that which is visible and can be touched with the finger. You are young, Octave, and you have still a long life before you; you will have other mistresses. Yes, as you say, pride is a little thing and it is not to it I look for consolation; but God wills that one of your tears shall one day pay me for those which I now shed for you!"