A few days after this ball had taken place, I overheard by chance a conversation, which awakened me to the truth, and at once put an end to my youth.
Madame de B. had a lacker screen in her drawing-room, which hid one of the doors, and extended beyond the window. Between the door and this window there was a table where I used frequently to draw. I sat down one morning, to work at a miniature there; my attention became so completely absorbed that I remained for some time motionless, and no doubt Madame de B. concluded that I had left the room when the Marchioness de C. was announced. This lady possessed a penetrating judgment, but her manners were trenchant, positive, and dry. She was capable of great devotion to her friends, but at the same time was inquisitive, and hard to please: in short she was the least amiable of Madame de B.'s friends. I feared her, though she had always shown a regard for me; that is, in her own way. Severity and investigation were its signs. I was too much accustomed to indulgence, not to fear her justice. "Now that we are alone, my dear," said this lady to Madame de B., "let me speak to you of Ourika. She is a charming girl; her mind is nearly formed; she possesses wit, infinite natural grace, and very superior talents; but what is to become of her? What do you intend to do with her?" "That is the very thought that distresses me," cried Madame de B. "I love her as my child: I should think no sacrifice too great to make her happy, but the longer I reflect upon her situation, the less remedy I find for it. Alas, poor Ourika! I see thee doomed to be alone—eternally alone in the world!"
It would be impossible for me to describe the effect these few words produced upon me; lightning could not have been more prompt. I discovered the extent of my misery. I saw what I was—a black girl, a dependant, without fortune, without a being of my own kind to whom I could unite my destiny; belonging to nobody; till now, the plaything of my benefactress, but soon an outcast from a world that I was not made for. I shuddered, and my heart beat so violently, that, for a moment, I could not attend to this conversation, but I strove to master my feeling.
"I fear," continued the Marchioness, "that you will make her very miserable. What will satisfy her, now that she has passed her life with you in the intimacy of your society?" "But will she not remain with me?" said Madame de B. "Aye, as long as her childhood lasts, but she is now nearly fifteen; and who can you marry her to, with the education you have given her? Who will ever marry a negro girl? And if you should find any man who, for the sake of money, would perhaps consent to have negro children, must it not be some one of inferior condition, with whom she would be unhappy? Will a man whom she would choose ever choose her?" "Alas! this is true," cried Madame de B. "but she fortunately does not suspect it, and her attachment for me will, I hope, prevent her perceiving her situation for some time. To have made her happy, I should have made an ordinary being of her; and frankly I believe that impossible. Besides, as she has not remained in the station she was first intended for, may not her mind rise superior to the restraints of her present one?" "Never; you are forging chimeras," replied the Marchioness; "Philosophy may raise our minds above the vicissitudes of fortune, but can never prevail against the evils which arise from having disturbed the laws of nature. Ourika has not fulfilled her destiny, she has usurped a place in society to which she had no right, and society will punish her for it." "But surely it is no fault of her's? Poor child! with what severity you decide upon her happiness." "I judge it more rationally than you have done.—I consider how it may best be secured, whilst you will be the cause of its ruin." Madame de B. answered this accusation with some warmth, and I was just becoming the cause of a quarrel between the two friends, when the arrival of a third person put an end to their discussion. I slid out at the door behind the screen, and flew to my own room, there to solace my poor heart for a moment by a flood of tears.
Oh, how I felt my whole existence changed! How lost I was when the illusions I had so constantly dwelt in vanished! They resembled the light of day, and when they fled, utter darkness succeeded. So great was the confusion of my mind under the new thoughts that assailed it, that not one of my usual ideas ever occurred to me. I was struck with terror. To be an object of pity to the world! Not to be fit for the rank I lived in! Perhaps to meet with a man who for the sake of money would consent to have negro children! These thoughts kept rising successively over my mind, pursuing me like phantoms. But the bitterest of all was the certainty of belonging to no one in the world. To be alone! Ever, and for ever alone! Madame de B. had owned it, and I repeated the words over and over. What cared I to be alone, but a few minutes before. I knew it not, I felt it not; I had need of the beings that I loved, but I was unconscious of their not wanting me. Now my eyes were opened, and with misfortune came mistrust into my soul.