Nothing can equal the state of anxiety and terror in which we passed our days: continually reading in the papers accounts of the sentences of death passed against Madame de B.'s friends, and trembling lest her protector should be deprived of the power of preserving her from a similar fate. We discovered, indeed, that she was on the eve of perishing, when the death of Robespierre put an end to so much horror. We breathed again. The guards left our house, and we all remained in the same solitude, like people who have escaped some great calamity together. Misfortune seemed to have linked us closer to each other. I felt in those moments that I was not a stranger. If I ever passed a few happy moments since the fairy days of my childhood, it was during the times that followed this disastrous epoch. Madame de B. possessed to a supreme degree those qualities which constitute the charm of domestic life; her temper was easy and indulgent; she always put the most favourable construction upon what was said before her: no harsh or captious judgment of hers ever cooled the confidence of her friends. Thoughts were free, and might be uttered without responsibility before her, merely passing for what they were worth. Such gifts, had they been her only ones, would have made Madame de B's friends adore her; but how many others she possessed! It was impossible to feel ennui in her company. There was a charm in her wit and manner, that made even trifles interesting the moment they engrossed her attention.
Charles bore some resemblance to his mother. His mind like her's was liberal and just, but firm, and without modification, for youth allows of none; it finds every thing either quite right or quite wrong, while the failing of old age is to believe that nothing is ever quite right or quite wrong. Charles was endowed with the two first qualities of his age,—truth and justice. I have already said, that he hated the very shadow of affectation; nay, he sometimes fancied it where it did not exist. Reserve was habitual to him, and this made his confidence the more flattering, as it was evidently the result of his esteem, and not of his natural propensity; whatever portion of it he granted, was of value, for he never acted inconsiderately, and yet was always natural and sincere. He placed such full reliance in me, that his thoughts were communicated to me as quickly as they came. When we were all seated round our table of an evening, how interesting were our conversations. Our old Abbé took his share in them; he had made out to himself such a completely false set of ideas, and maintained them with so much good faith, that he was an inexhaustible source of amusement to Madame de B.; her clear and penetrating judgment drew out the poor man's absurdities (he never taking it amiss), and she would throw in keen traits of good sense over his orderly system, which we used to compare to the heavy strokes of Charlemagne's or Roland's sword.
Madame de B. was fond of exercise; we used to walk in the forest of St. Germain every morning; she leaning on the Abbé, and I following with Charles at a distance. It was then he would unburthen his mind to me, and tell me his thoughts, his projects, his future hopes, and above all, his opinion upon men and passing events. He had not a secret feeling hidden from me, and was unconscious of disclosing one. The habit of relying upon my friendship had made it like his own life to him. He enjoyed it without knowing that he did. He demanded neither attention nor expressions of interest from me; he knew that, in speaking to me of his own concerns, it was as though he spoke to me of mine, and that I felt more deeply for him than he did for himself. Friendship like this was a charm that equalled the sensations of happiness itself!
I never thought of telling Charles what had so long oppressed me. I listened to him, and, by I know not what magical effect, his conversation banished from my mind the recollection of my sorrows. Had he questioned me, I should have confessed them all, but he did not imagine that I had any secret. Every body was accustomed to my weak state of health, and Madame de B. had striven so much to make me happy, that she had a right to think me so. So I ought to have been, I felt it, and often accused myself of ingratitude and folly. I doubt whether I should have ever dared to own how miserable the irreparable misfortune of my colour made me. There is a sort of degradation in not being able to submit to necessity, and when hopeless grief masters the soul, it bears the character of despair. There was a rigidity in Charles's notions, which likewise increased my timidity. One evening our conversation turned upon pity, and it was asked, whether misfortune inspires most compassion from its cause or from its effects. Charles decided for the former; this was declaring that all grief should be actuated by some powerful motive. But who can judge the motives of another? All hearts have not the same wants; and does not real misfortune consist in the heart's being deprived of its desires? It was seldom, however, that our conversations thus led me to reflect upon my own case, which I so earnestly sought to forget. I would have no looking-glasses in my room. I constantly wore gloves, and dresses that covered my throat and arms. I had a large hat and veil to walk out in, which I often continued to wear in doors: in short, I would fain have deceived myself, and, like a child, shut my own eyes, and thought that no one saw me.
Towards the end of the year 1795, the reign of terror being at an end, friends began to seek each other out, and the scattered remains of Madame de B.'s society rallied round her. With chagrin I beheld the circle of her friends increase, for the station I held in the world was so equivocal, that the more society returned to its natural order, the more I felt myself excluded from it. Every time that strangers came to visit us I underwent fresh misery. The expression of surprise, mingled with disdain, that I observed upon their countenances when they first beheld, me, put me to confusion. I was sure to become the subject of an aparté in the window-seat, or of a whisper in a corner, that it might be explained how a negress came to be admitted as an inmate in Madame de B.'s society. I used to suffer martyrdom during these explanations. I longed to be transported back to my barbarous country and its savage inhabitants, whom I should fear less than this cruel world that made me responsible for its own evils. The recollection of a disdainful look would remain upon me for whole days, appear to me in my dreams, flit before me under the likeness of my own image. Alas! such were the chimeras that I suffered to disturb me. Thou, my God! hadst not yet taught me to dispel these phantoms; I knew not that repose was to be found in thee.
I then sought for shelter in the heart of Charles. I was proud of his virtues, and still prouder of his friendship. I admired him as the most perfect being that I knew upon earth. I once thought that I felt for him the most tender love of a sister; but now, worn by grief, it seemed as if I had grown old, and my tenderness was become that of a mother. Indeed, a mother only could feel the same passionate desire for his success, and anxiety for his welfare through life. I would willingly have given up my existence to save him from a moment's pain. I saw the impression he made upon others long before he did. He was happy enough neither to think nor care about it. This was natural, for he had nothing to fear; nothing to give him that habitual uneasiness I felt about the opinion of others. His fate was all harmony, mine was all discord.