"Are you joking?" I asked. "Do you think such a woman could be my mistress? Do you think I would ever consent to share her with another? Do you know that she confesses that another possesses her and do you expect me, loving her as I do, to share my love? If that is the way you love, I pity you."
Desgenais replied that he was not so particular.
"My dear Octave," he added, "you are very young. You want many things, beautiful things, which do not exist. You believe in a singular sort of love; perhaps you are capable of it; I believe you are, but I do not envy you. You will have other mistresses, my friend, and you will live to regret what happened last night. If that woman came to you it is certain that she loved you; perhaps she does not love you at this moment, indeed she may be in the arms of another; but she loved you last night in that room; and what should you care for the rest? You will regret it, believe me, for she will not come again. A woman pardons everything except such a slight. Her love for you must have been something terrible when she came to you knowing and confessing herself guilty, risking rebuff and contempt at your hands. Believe me, you will regret it, for I am satisfied that you will soon be cured."
There was such an air of simple conviction about my friend's words, such a despairing certainty based on experience, that I shuddered as I listened. While he was speaking I felt a strong desire to go to my mistress, or to write to her to come to me. I was so weak that I could not leave my bed and that saved me from the shame of finding her waiting for my rival or perhaps in his company. But I could write to her; in spite of myself I doubted whether she would come if I should write.
When Desgenais left me I became so desperate that I resolved to put an end to my trouble. After a terrible struggle horror got the better of love. I wrote my mistress that I would never see her again and begged her not to try to see me unless she wished to be exposed to the shame of being refused admittance. I called a servant and ordered him to deliver the letter at once. He had hardly closed the door when I called him back. He did not hear me; I did not dare call again; covering my face with my hands I yielded to an overwhelming sense of despair.
CHAPTER IV
THE following morning the first question that occurred to my mind was:
"What shall I do?"
I had no occupation. I had studied medicine and law without being able to decide on either of the two professions; I had worked for a banker for six months and my services were so unsatisfactory that I was obliged to resign to avoid being discharged. My studies had been varied but superficial; my memory was active but not retentive.
My only treasure after love, was independence. In my childhood I had devoted myself to a morose cult, and had, so to speak, consecrated my heart to it. One day my father, solicitous about my future, spoke to me of several careers between which he allowed me to choose. I was leaning on the window-sill, looking at a solitary poplar-tree that was swaying in the breeze down in the garden. I thought over all the various occupations and wondered which one I should choose. I turned them all over, one after another, in my mind, and then not feeling inclined to any of them I allowed my thoughts to wander. Suddenly it seemed to me that I felt the earth move and that a secret invisible force was slowly dragging me into space and becoming tangible to my senses; I saw it mount into the sky; I seemed to be on a ship; the poplar near my window resembled a mast; I arose, stretched out my arms, and cried:
"It is little enough to be a passenger for one day on this ship floating through space; it is little enough to be a man, a black point on that ship; I will be a man but not any particular kind of man."