The portraits, utterly without resemblance, that have been made of me, are due in the main to the reticence of my speech. The crowd is too thoughtless, too inattentive, to see individuals as they are. Whenever, by chance, I have endeavoured to rectify some of these false judgments in my prefaces, I have not been believed. In the ultimate result, all things being indifferent to me, I have not insisted; an "as you please" has always rid me of the irksomeness of persuading anyone or of seeking to establish a truth. I return to my spiritual tribunal, like a hare to its form: there I resume my contemplation of the moving leaf or the bending blade of grass.
I do not make a virtue of my guardedness, which is as invincible as it is involuntary: although it is not deceitful, it has the appearance of being so; it is not in harmony with natures happier, more amiable, more facile, more candid, more ample, more communicative than mine. It has often injured me in matters of sentiment and business, because I have never been able to endure explanations, reconciliations brought about by protests and elucidations, lamentations and tears, verbiage and reproaches, details and apologies.
In the case of the Ives family, this obstinate silence of mine concerning myself proved extremely fatal to me. A score of times Charlotte's mother had inquired into my family and given me the opportunity of speaking openly. Not foreseeing whither my silence would lead me, I contented myself, as usual, with replying in short, vague sentences. Had I not been the victim of that odious mental perversity, all misunderstanding would have become impossible, and I should not have appeared to wish to deceive the most generous hospitality; the truth, as I told it at the last moment, did not excuse me: genuine harm had none the less been done.
I resumed my work in the midst of my grief and of the just reproaches with which I covered myself. I even took pleasure in this work, for it struck me that, by achieving renown, I should be giving the Ives family less cause to repent the interest which they had shown me. Charlotte, with whom I thus sought to be reconciled through my glory, presided over my studies. Her image was seated before me while I wrote. When I raised my eyes from the paper, I lifted them upon the adored image, as though the original were in fact there. The inhabitants of Ceylon one morning saw the luminary of day rise in extraordinary splendour; its orb opened out, and from it issued a dazzling being, who said to the Cingalese:
"I have come to reign over you."
Charlotte, issuing from a ray of light, reigned over me.
Let us leave these memories; memories grow old and dim like hopes. My life is about to change, to speed under other skies, in other valleys. First love of my youth, you flee with all your charms! I have just seen Charlotte again, it is true; but after how many years did I see her again? Sweet glimpse of the past, pale rose of the twilight which borders the night, long after the sun has set!
*
The Essai Historique.
Life has often been represented (by me first of all) as a mountain which we climb on one side and descend on the other: it would be as true to compare it to an Alp, to the bare, ice-crowned summit which has no reverse. Following up this figure, the traveller always climbs upwards and never down; he then sees more clearly the space which he has covered, the paths which he has not taken, although by doing so he could have risen by a gentler slope: he looks down with sorrow and regret upon the point where he commenced to stray. Thus I must mark at the publication of the Essai historique the first step which led me out of the peaceful road. I finished the first part of the great work which I had planned; I wrote the last word between the idea of death (I had fallen ill again) and a vanished dream: In somnis venit imago conjugis.[196] The Essai, printed by Baylis, was published by Deboffe in 1797[197]. This date marks one of the turning-points in my life. There are moments at which our destiny, whether because it yields to society, or obeys the laws of nature, or begins to make us what we shall have to remain, suddenly turns aside from its first line, like a river which changes its course with a sudden bend.