The Confession of a Child of the Century

by Alfred de Musset

BRIGITTE slept. Silent, motionless, I sat near her. As a farmer, when the storm has passed, counts the sheaves that remain in his devastated field, thus I began to estimate the evil I had done.

The more I thought of it, the more irreparable I felt it to be. Certain sorrows, by their very excess, warn us of their limits, and the more shame and remorse I experienced, the more I felt that, after such a scene, nothing remained for us to do but to say adieu. Whatever courage Brigitte had shown, she had drunk to the dregs the bitter cup of her sad love: unless I wished to see her die, I must give her repose. She had often addressed cruel reproaches to me and had, perhaps, on certain other occasions shown more anger than in this scene; but what she had said this time was not dictated by offended pride; it was the truth, which, hidden closely in her heart, had broken it in escaping. Our present relations, and the fact that I had refused to go away with her, destroyed all hope; she desired to pardon me but she had not the power. This slumber even, this deathlike sleep of one who could suffer no more, was conclusive evidence; this sudden silence, the tenderness she had shown in the final moments, that pale face, and that kiss, confirmed me in the belief that all was over, and that I had broken, forever, whatever bond had united us. As surely as she slept now, as soon as I gave her cause for further suffering, she would sleep in eternal rest. The clock struck and I felt that the last hour had carried away my life with hers.

Unwilling to call any one, I lighted Brigitte's lamp; I watched its feeble flame and my thoughts seemed to flicker in the darkness like its uncertain rays.

Whatever I had said or done, the idea of losing Brigitte had never occurred to me up to this time. A hundred times I wished to leave her, but who has loved, and is ready to say just what is in his heart? That was in times of despair or of anger. So long as I knew that she loved me, I was sure of loving her; stern necessity had just arisen between us for the first time. I experienced a dull languor and could distinguish nothing clearly. What my mind understood, my soul recoiled from accepting. "Come," I said to myself, "I have desired it, and I have done it; there is not the slightest hope that we can live together; I am unwilling to kill this woman, so I have no alternative but to leave her. It is all over; I shall go away to-morrow."

And all the while I was thinking neither of my responsibility, nor of the past, nor future; I thought neither of Smith nor his connection with the affair; I could not say who had led me there, or what I had done during the last hour. I looked at the walls of the room and thought that all I had to do was to wait until to-morrow and decide what carriage I would take.

I remained for a long time in this strange calm. Just as the man who receives a thrust from a poignard feels, at first only the cold steel; when he has gone some distance on his way he becomes weak, his eyes start from their sockets and he asks what has happened. But drop by drop the blood flows, the ground under his feet becomes red; death comes; the man, at his approach, shudders with horror and falls as though struck by a thunderbolt. Thus, apparently calm, I awaited the coming of misfortune; I repeated in a low voice what Brigitte had said, and I placed near her all that I supposed she would need for the night; I looked at her, and then went to the window and pressed my forehead against the pane, peering out at a somber and lowering sky; then I returned to the bedside. That I was going away to-morrow was the only thought in my mind and, little by little, the word "depart" became intelligible to me. "Ah! God!" I suddenly cried, "my poor mistress, I am going to lose you and I have not known how to love you!"

I trembled at these words as though it had been another who had pronounced them; they resounded through all my being as resounds the string of the harp that has been plucked to the point of breaking. In an instant two years of suffering traversed my heart, and after them, as their consequence and as their last expression, the present seized me. How shall I describe such woe? By a single word, perhaps, for those who have loved. I had taken Brigitte's hand, and, in a dream, doubtless, she had pronounced my name.

I arose, and went to my room; a torrent of tears flowed from my eyes. I held out my arms as though to seize the past which was escaping me. "Is it possible," I repeated, "that I am going to lose you? I can love no one but you. What! you are going away? And forever? What! you, my life, my adored mistress, you flee from me; I shall never see you again? Never! never!" I said aloud; and, addressing myself to the sleeping Brigitte as though she could hear me, I added: "Never, never; do not think of it; I will never consent to it. And why so much pride? Are there no means of atoning for the offense I have committed? I beg of you let us seek some expiation. Have you not pardoned me a thousand times? But you love me, you will not be able to go, for courage will fail you. What shall we do?"

A horrible madness seized me; I began to run here and there in search of some instrument of death. At last I fell on my knees and beat my head against the bed. Brigitte stirred and I remained quiet, fearing I would waken her.

"Let her sleep until to-morrow," I said to myself; "you have all night to watch her."