The Confession of a Child of the Century

by Alfred de Musset

I arose and, passing into the next room, sat down on Brigitte's trunk. There, I leaned my head on my hand and sat motionless. I looked about me at the confused piles of goods. Alas! I knew them all; my heart was not so hardened that it could not be moved by the memories which they awakened. I began to calculate all the harm I had done; I saw my dear Brigitte walking under the lindens with her goat beside her.

"O man!" I mused, "and by what right? How dared you come to this house and lay hands on this woman? Who has ordained that she should suffer for you? You array yourself in fine linen and set out, sleek and happy, for the home where your mistress languishes; you throw yourself upon the cushions where she has just knelt in prayer, for you and for her, and you gently stroke those delicate hands that still tremble. You think it no evil to inflame a poor heart, and you perorate as warmly in your deliriums of love as the wretched lawyer who comes with red eyes from a suit he has lost. You play the infant prodigy, you make sport of suffering; you find it amusing to occupy your leisure moments, to commit murder by means of little pin pricks. What will you say to the living God when your work is finished? What will become of the woman who loves you? Where will you fall while she leans on you for support? With what face will you one day bury your pale and wretched creature, who has just buried the only being who was left to protect her? Yes, yes, you will doubtless have to bury her, for your love kills and consumes; you have devoted her to the furies and it is she who appeases them. If you follow that woman, you will be the cause of her death. Take care! her guardian angel hesitates; he has just knocked at the door of this house, in order to frighten away a fatal and shameful passion! He inspired Brigitte with the idea of flight; at this moment he may be whispering in her ear his final warning. O you assassin! You murderer! beware! it is a matter of life and death."

Thus, I communed with myself; then on the sofa I caught sight of a little gingham dress, folded and ready to be packed in the trunk. It had been the witness of our happy days. I took it up and examined it.

"I leave you!" I said to it; "I lose you! O little dress, would you go away without me?"

"No, I can not abandon Brigitte; under the circumstances it would be cowardly. She has just lost her aunt, and is all alone; she is exposed to the power of, I know not what enemy. Can it be Mercanson? He may have spoken of my conversation with him, and seeing that I was jealous of Dalens, may have guessed the rest. Assuredly, he is the snake who has been hissing about my well-beloved flower. I must punish him, and I must repair the wrong I have done Brigitte. Fool that I am! I think of leaving her when I ought to consecrate my life to her, to the expiation of my sins, to rendering her happy after the tears I have drawn from her eyes! When I am her only support in the world, her only friend, her only protection! When I ought to follow her to the end of the world, to shelter her with my body, to console her for having loved me, for having given herself to me!"

"Brigitte!" I cried, returning to her room, "wait an hour for me and I will return."

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"Wait for me," I replied, "do not set out without me. Remember the words of Ruth: 'Whither thou goest, I shall go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God, where thou diest will I die, and there will I be buried.'"

I left her precipitately, and rushed out to find Mercanson. I was told that he had gone out, and I entered his house to wait for him.

I sat in the corner of the room on a priest's chair before a dirty black table. I was becoming impatient when I recalled my duel on account of my first mistress.