Child of a Century, Complete

Upon awaking the following morning I experienced a feeling of such deep disgust with myself, and felt so degraded in my own eyes that a horrible temptation assailed me. Then I sat down and looked gloomily about the room, my eyes resting mechanically on a brace of pistols that decorated the walls.

When the suffering mind stretches its hands, so to speak, toward annihilation, when the soul forms some violent resolution, there seems to be an independent physical horror in the act of touching the cold steel of some deadly weapon; the fingers stiffen in anguish, the arm grows cold and hard. Nature recoils as the condemned walks to death. I can not express what I experienced, unless it was as if my pistol had said to me: "Think what you are about to do."

Since then I have often wondered what would have happened to me if the girl had departed immediately. Doubtless the first flush of shame would have subsided; sadness is not despair, and God has joined them in order that the one should not leave us alone with the other. Once relieved of the presence of that woman, my heart would have become calm. There would remain only repentance, for the angel of pardon has forbidden man to kill. But I was doubtless cured for life; debauchery was once for all driven from my door, and I would never again know the feeling of disgust with which its first visit had inspired me.

But it happened otherwise. The struggle which was going on within, the poignant reflections which overwhelmed me, the disgust, the fear, the wrath, even (for I experienced all these emotions at the same time), all these fatal powers nailed me to my chair; and, while I was thus a prey to dangerous delirium, the creature, standing before my mirror, thought of nothing but how best to arrange her dress and fix her hair, smiling the while. This lasted more than a quarter of an hour, during which I had almost forgotten her. Finally some slight noise attracted my attention to her, and turning about with impatience I ordered her to leave the room in such a tone that she at once opened the door and threw me a kiss before going out.

At the same moment some one rang the bell of the outer door. I arose precipitately, and had only time to open the closet door and motion the creature into it, when Desgenais entered the room with two friends.

The great currents that are found in the middle of the ocean resemble certain events in life. Fatality, Chance, Providence, what matters the name? Those who quarrel over the word admit the fact. Such are not those who, speaking of Napoleon or Caesar, say:

"He was a man of Providence." They apparently believe that heroes merit the attention which Heaven shows them, and that the color of purple attracts gods as well as bulls.

As to what rules the course of these little events, or what objects and circumstances, in appearance the least important, lead to changes in fortune, there is not, to my mind, a deeper cause and opportunity for thought. For something in our ordinary actions resembles the little blunted arrows we shoot at targets; little by little we make of our successive deeds an abstract and regular entity that we call our prudence or our will. Then comes a gust of wind, and lo! the smallest of these arrows, the very lightest and most ineffective, is wafted beyond our vision, beyond the very horizon to the dwelling-place of God himself.

What a strange feeling of unrest seizes us then! What becomes of those phantoms of tranquil pride, the will and prudence? Force itself, that mistress of the world, that sword of man in the combat of life, in vain do we brandish it over our heads in wrath, in vain do we seek to ward off with it a blow which threatens us; an invisible power turns aside the point, and all the impetus of effort, deflected into space, serves only to precipitate our fall.

Thus, at the moment I was hoping to cleanse myself from the sin I had committed, perhaps to inflict the penalty, at the very instant when a great horror had taken possession of me, I learned that I had to sustain a dangerous test.

Desgenais was in good humor; stretching himself out on my sofa he began to chaff me about my appearance, which indicated, he said, that I had not slept well. As I was little disposed to indulge in pleasantry I begged him to spare me.

He appeared to pay no attention to me, but, warned by my tone, soon broached the subject that had brought him to me. He informed me that my mistress had not only two lovers at a time, but three; that is to say, she had treated my rival as badly as she had treated me; the poor boy, having discovered her inconstancy, made a great ado and all Paris knew it. At first I did not catch the meaning of Desgenais's words, as I was not listening attentively; but when he had repeated his story three times in detail I was so stupefied that I could not reply. My first impulse was to laugh, for I saw that I had loved the most unworthy of women; but it was no less true that I loved her still. "Is it possible?" was all I could say.

Desgenais's friends confirmed all he had said. My mistress had been surprised in her own house between two lovers, and a scene ensued that all Paris knew by heart. She was disgraced, obliged to leave Paris or remain exposed to the most bitter taunts.

It was easy for me to see that in all this ridicule a great part was directed at me, not only on account of my duel in connection with this woman, but from my whole conduct in regard to her. To say that she deserved severest censure, that she had perhaps committed far worse sins than those she was charged with, was but to make me feel that I had been one of her dupes.

All this did not please me; but Desgenais had undertaken the task of curing me of my love, and was prepared to treat my disease heroically. A long friendship, founded on mutual services, gave him certain rights, and as his motive appeared praiseworthy I allowed him to have his way.

Not only did he not spare me, but when he saw my trouble and my shame increase, he pressed me the harder. My impatience was so obvious that he could not continue, so he stopped and remained silent-a course that irritated me still more.

In my turn I began to ask questions; I paced to and fro in my room. Although the recital of the story was well-nigh insupportable, I wished to hear it again. I tried to assume a smiling face and tranquil air, but in vain. Desgenais suddenly became silent after having shown himself to be a most virulent gossip. While I was pacing up and down my room he looked at me calmly, as if I were a caged fox.

I can not express my state of mind. That a woman who had so long been the idol of my heart, and who, since I had lost her, had caused me such deep affliction, the only one I had ever loved, for whom indeed I might sorrow till death, should become suddenly a shameless wretch, the subject of coarse jests, of universal censure and scandal! It seemed to me that I felt on my shoulder the brand of a glowing iron and that I was marked with a burning stigma.

The more I reflected, the more the darkness thickened about me. From time to time I turned my head and saw a cold smile or a curious glance. Desgenais did not leave me; he knew very well what he was doing, and saw that I might go to any lengths in my present desperate condition.

When he found that he had brought me to the desired point, he did not hesitate to deal the finishing stroke.

"Does that story displease you?" he asked. "The best is yet to come. My dear Octave, the scene I have described took place on a certain night when the moon was shining brightly. While the two lovers were quarrelling over their fair one, and talking of cutting her throat as she sat before the fire, down in the street a certain shadow was seen to pass up and down before the house, a shadow that resembled you so closely that it was decided it must be you."

"Who says so?" I asked, "who saw me in the street?"

"Your mistress herself; she told it to every one who cared to listen, just as cheerfully as we tell you her story. She claims that you love her still, that you keep guard at her door, in short-everything you can think of; but you ought to know that she talks about you publicly."

I have never been able to lie, for whenever I have tried to disguise the truth my face has betrayed me. 'Amour propre', the shame of confessing my weakness before witnesses induced me, however, to make the effort. "It is very true that I was in the street," I thought, "but had I known that my mistress was as bad as she is, I should not have been there."

Finally I persuaded myself that I had not been seen distinctly; I attempted to deny it. A deep flush suffused my face and I felt the futility of my feint. Desgenais smiled.

"Take care," said he, "take care, do not go too far."

"But," I protested, "how did I know it, how could I know-"

Desgenais compressed his lips as if to say:

"You knew enough."

I stopped short, mumbling the remnant of my sentence. My blood became so hot that I could not continue.

"I in the street bathed in tears, in despair, and during that time that encounter within! What! that very night! Mocked by her! Surely, Desgenais, you are dreaming. Is it true? Can it be possible? What can you know about it?"

Thus talking at haphazard, I lost my head and an irresistible feeling of wrath began to rise within me. Finally I sat down exhausted.

"My friend," said Desgenais, "do not take the thing so seriously. The solitary life you have been leading for the last two months has made you ill; I see you have need of distraction. Come to supper with me this evening, and tomorrow morning we will go to the country."

The tone in which he said this hurt me more than anything else; in vain I tried to control myself. "Yes," I thought, "deceived by that woman, poisoned by horrible suggestions, having no refuge either in work or in fatigue, having for my only safeguard against despair and ruin a sacred but frightful grief. O God! it is that grief, that sacred relic of my sorrow, that has just crumbled in my hands! It is no longer, my love, it is my despair that is insulted. Mockery! She mocks at me as I weep!" That appeared incredible to me. All the memories of the past crowded about my heart when I thought of it. I seemed to see the spectres of our nights of love; they hung over a bottomless, eternal abyss, black as chaos, and from the bottom of that abyss arose a shriek of laughter, sweet but mocking, that said: "Behold your reward!"

Had I been told that the world mocked at me I would have replied: "So much the worse for it," and I should not have been angry; but at the same time I was told that my mistress was a shameless wretch. Thus, on one side, the ridicule was public, vouched for, stated by two witnesses who, before telling what they knew, must have felt that the world was against me; and, on the other hand, what reply could I make? How could I escape? What could I do when the centre of my life, my heart itself, was ruined, killed, annihilated. What could I say when the woman for whom I had braved all, ridicule as well as blame, for whom I had borne a load of misery, whom I loved, and who loved another, of whom I demanded no love, of whom I desired nothing but permission to weep at her door, no favor but that of vowing my youth to her memory and of writing her name, her name alone, on the tomb of my hopes!-Ah! when I thought of it, I felt the hand of death heavy upon me. That woman mocked me, it was she who first pointed her finger at me, singling me out to the idle crowd which surrounded her; it was she, it was those lips erstwhile so many times pressed to mine, it was that body, that soul of my life, my flesh and my blood, it was from that source the injury came; yea, the last pang of all, the most cowardly and the most bitter, the pitiless laugh that sneers in the face of grief.

The more I thought of it the more enraged I became. Did I say enraged? I do not know what passion possessed me. What I do know is that an inordinate desire for vengeance entered into my soul. How could I revenge myself on a woman? I would have paid any price for a weapon that could be used against her. But I had none, not even the one she had employed; I could not pay her in her own coin.

Suddenly I noticed a shadow moving behind the curtain before the closet. I had forgotten my prisoner.

"Listen to me!" I cried, rising, "I have loved, I have loved like a fool. I deserve all the ridicule you have subjected me to. But, by Heaven! I will show you something that will prove to you that I am not such a fool as you think."

With these words I pulled aside the curtain and exposed the interior of the closet. The girl was trying to conceal herself in a corner.

"Go in, if you choose," I said to Desgenais; "you who call me a fool for loving a woman, see how your teaching has affected me. Do you think I passed last night under the windows of-? But that is not all," I added, "that is not all I have to say. You give a supper to-night and to-morrow go to the country; I am with you, and shall not leave you from now on. We will not separate, but will pass the entire day together. Are you with me? Agreed! I have tried to make of my heart the mausoleum of my love, but I will bury my love in another tomb."

With these words I sat down, marvelling how indignation can solace grief and restore happiness. Whoever is astonished to learn that, from that day, I completely changed my course of life does not know the heart of man, and does not understand that a young man of twenty may hesitate before taking a step, but does not retreat when he has once taken it.

The first steps in debauchery resemble vertigo, for one feels a sort of terror mingled with sensuous delight, as if peering downward from some giddy-height. While shameful, secret dissipation ruins the noblest of men, in the frank and open defiance of conventionality there is something that compels respect even in the most depraved. He who goes at nightfall, muffled in his cloak, to sully his life in secret, and clandestinely to shake off the hypocrisy of the day, resembles an Italian who strikes his enemy from behind, not daring to provoke him to open quarrel.

There are assassinations in the dark corners of the city under shelter of the night. He who goes his way without concealment says: "Every one does it and conceals it; I do it and do not conceal it." Thus speaks pride, and once that cuirass has been buckled on, it glitters with the refulgent light of day.

It is said that Damocles saw a sword suspended over his head. Thus libertines seem to have something over their heads which says: "Go on, but remember, I hang not by a thread." Those masked carriages that are seen during Carnival are the faithful images of their life. A dilapidated open wagon, flaming torches lighting up painted faces; some laugh, some sing. Among them you see what appear to be women; they are in fact what once were women, with human semblance. They are caressed and insulted; no one knows who they are or what their names. They float and stagger under the flaming torches in an intoxication that thinks of nothing, and over which, it is said, a pitying God watches.

But if the first impression be astonishment, the second is horror, and the third pity. There is evident so much force, or rather such an abuse of force, that often the noblest characters and the strongest constitutions are ruined. The life appears hardy and dangerous to these; they would make prodigies of themselves; bound to debauchery as Mazeppa to his horse, they gallop, making Centaurs of themselves and seeing neither the bloody trail that the shreds of their flesh leave, nor the eyes of the wolves that gleam in hungry pursuit, nor the desert, nor the vultures.

Launched into that life by the circumstances that I have recounted, I must now describe what I saw there.

Before I had a close view of one of those famous gatherings called theatrical masked balls, I had heard the debauchery of the Regency spoken of, and a reference to the time when a queen of France appeared disguised as a violet-seller. I found there flower-merchants disguised as vivandieres. I expected to find libertinism there, but in fact I found none at all. One sees only the scum of libertinism, some blows, and drunken women lying in deathlike stupor on broken bottles.

Ere I saw debauchery at table I had heard of the suppers of Heliogabolus and of the philosophy of Greece, which made the pleasures of the senses a kind of natural religion. I expected to find oblivion or something like joy; I found there the worst thing in the world: ennui trying to live, and some Englishmen who said: "I do this or that, and so I amuse myself. I have spent so many sovereigns, and have procured so much pleasure." And thus they wear out their life on that grindstone.

I had known nothing of courtesans when I heard of Aspasia, who sat on the knees of Alcibiades while discussing philosophy with Socrates. I expected to find something bold and insolent, but gay, free, and vivacious, something with the sparkle of champagne; I found a yawning mouth, a fixed eye, and light fingers.

Before I saw titled courtesans I had read Boccaccio and Bandello; above all, I had read Shakespeare. I had dreamed of those beautiful triflers; of those cherubim of hell. A thousand times I had drawn those heads so poetically foolish, so enterprising in audacity, heads of harebrained mistresses who wreck a romance with a glance, and who pass through life by waves and by pulsations, like the sirens of the tides. I thought of the fairies of the modern tales, who are always drunk with love if not with wine. I found, instead, writers of letters, exact arrangers of assignations, who practised lying as an art and cloaked their baseness under hypocrisy, whose only thought was to give themselves for profit and to forget.

Ere first I looked on the gaming-table I had heard of floods of gold, of fortunes made in a quarter of an hour, and of a lord of the court of Henry IV, who won on one card a hundred thousand louis. I found a narrow room where workmen who had but one shirt rented a suit for the evening for twenty sous, police stationed at the door, and starving wretches staking a crust of bread against a pistol-shot.

Unknown to me were those dance-halls, public or other, open to any of those thirty thousand women who are permitted to sell themselves in Paris; I had heard of the saturnalia of all ages, of every imaginable orgy, from Babylon to Rome, from the temple of Priapus to the Parc-aux-Cerfs, and I have always seen written on the sill of that door the word, "Pleasure." I found nothing suggestive of pleasure, but in its place another word; and it has always seemed ineffaceable, not graven in that glorious metal that takes the sun's light, but in the palest of all, the cold colors of which seem tinted by the moonlight silver.

The first time I saw a mob, it was a depressing morning-Ash Wednesday, near Courtille. A cold, fine rain had been falling since the evening before; the streets were covered with pools of water. Carriages with blinds down were strung out hither and thither, crowding between hedges of hideous men and women standing on the sidewalks. That sinister wall of spectators had tigerish eyes, red with wine, gleaming with hatred. The carriage-wheels splashed mud over them, but they did not move. I was standing on the front seat of an open carriage; from time to time a man in rags would step out from the wall, hurl a torrent of abuse at us, then cover us with a cloud of flour. Mud would soon follow; yet we kept on our way toward the Isle of Love and the pretty wood of Romainville, consecrated by so many sweet kisses. One of my friends fell from his seat into the mud, narrowly escaping death on the paving. The people threw themselves on him to overpower him, and we were obliged to hasten to his assistance. One of the trumpeters who preceded us on horseback was struck on the shoulder by a paving-stone; the flour had given out. I had never heard of anything like that.

I began to understand the time and comprehend the spirit of the age.

Desgenais had planned a reunion of young people at his country house. The best wines, a splendid table, gaming, dancing, hunting, nothing was lacking. Desgenais was rich and generous. He combined an antique hospitality with modern ways. Moreover one could always find in his house the best books; his conversation was that of a man of learning and culture. He was a problem.

I took with me a taciturn humor that nothing could overcome; he respected it scrupulously. I did not reply to his questions and he dropped the subject; he was satisfied that I had forgotten my mistress. I went to the chase and appeared at the table, and was as convivial as the best; he asked no more.

One of the most unfortunate tendencies of inexperienced youth is to judge of the world from first impressions; but it must be confessed that there is a race of men who are also very unhappy; a race which says to youth: "You are right in believing in evil, for we know what it is." I have heard, for example, a curious thing spoken of, a medium between good and evil, a certain arrangement between heartless women and men worthy of them-apparently love, but in reality a passing sentiment. They speak of love as of an engine constructed by a wagon-builder or a building-contractor. They said to me: "This and that are agreed upon, such and such phrases are spoken, and certain others are repeated in reply; letters are written in a prescribed manner, you kneel in a certain attitude." All is regulated as in a parade.

This made me laugh. Unfortunately for me, I can not tell a woman whom I despise that I love her, even when I know that it is only a convention and that she will not be deceived by it. I have never bent my knee to the ground when my heart did not go with it. So that class of women known as facile is unknown to me, or if I allow myself to be taken with them, it is without knowing it, and through innate simplicity.

I can understand that one's soul can be put aside, but not that it should be handled. That there is some pride in this, I confess, but I do not intend either to boast or abase myself. Above all things I hate those women who laugh at love, and I permit them to reciprocate the sentiment; there will never be any dispute between us.

Such women are beneath courtesans, for courtesans may lie as well as they; but courtesans are capable of love, and these women are not. I remember a woman who loved me, and who said to a man many times richer than I, with whom she was living: "I am weary of you, I am going to my lover." That woman is worth more than many others who are not despised by society.

I passed the entire season with Desgenais, and learned that my mistress had left France; that news left in my heart a feeling of languor which I could not overcome.

At the sight of that world which surrounded and was so new to me, I experienced at first a kind of bizarre curiosity, at once sad and profound, which made me look timorously at things as does a restless horse. Then an incident occurred which made a deep impression on me.

Desgenais had with him a very beautiful woman who loved him much. One evening as I was walking with him I told him that I considered her admirable, as much on account of her attachment for him as because of her beauty. In short, I praised her highly and with warmth, giving him to understand that he ought to be happy.

He made no reply. It was his manner, for he was the dryest of men. That night when all had retired, and I had been in bed some fifteen minutes I heard a knock at my door. I supposed it was some one of my friends who could not sleep, and invited him to enter.

There appeared before my astonished eyes a woman, very pale, carrying a bouquet in her hands, to which was attached a piece of paper bearing these words "To Octave, from his friend Desgenais."

I had no sooner read these words than a flash of light came to me. I understood the meaning of this action of Desgenais in making me this African gift. It made me think. The poor woman was weeping and did not dare dry her tears for fear I would see them. I said to her: "You may return and fear nothing."

She replied that if she should return Desgenais would send her back to Paris. "Yes," I replied, "you are beautiful and I am susceptible to temptation, but you weep, and your tears not being shed for me, I care nothing for the rest. Go, therefore, and I will see to it that you are not sent back to Paris."

One of my peculiarities is that meditation, which with many is a firm and constant quality of the mind, is in my case an instinct independent of the will, and seizes me like a fit of passion. It comes to me at intervals in its own good time, regardless of my will and in almost any place. But when it comes I can do nothing against it. It takes me whither it pleases by whatever route seems good to it.

When the woman had left, I sat up.

"My friend," I said to myself, "behold what has been sent you. If Desgenais had not seen fit to send you his mistress he would not have been mistaken, perhaps, in supposing that you might fall in love with her.

"Have you well considered it? A sublime and divine mystery is accomplished. Such a being costs nature the most vigilant maternal care; yet man, who would cure you, can think of nothing better than to offer you lips which belong to him in order to teach you how to cease to love.

"How was it accomplished? Others than you have doubtless admired her, but they ran no risk. She might employ all the seduction she pleased; you alone were in danger.

"It must be that Desgenais has a heart, since he lives. In what respect does he differ from you. He is a man who believes in nothing, fears nothing, who knows no care or ennui, perhaps, and yet it is clear that a scratch on the finger would fill him with terror, for if his body abandons him, what becomes of him? He lives only in the body. What sort of creature is he who treats his soul as the flagellants treat their bodies? Can one live without a head?

"Think of it. Here is a man who possesses one of the most beautiful women in the world; he is young and ardent; he finds her beautiful and tells her so; she replies that she loves him. Some one touches him on the shoulder and says to him: 'She is unfaithful.' Nothing more, he is sure of himself. If some one had said: 'She is a poisoner,' he would, perhaps have continued to love her, he would not have given her a kiss less; but she is unfaithful, and it is no more a question of love with him than of the star of Saturn.

"What is there in that word? A word that is merited, positive, withering, at will. But why? It is still but a word. Can you kill a body with a word?

"And if you love that body? Some one pours a glass of wine and says to you: 'Do not love that, for you can get four for six francs.' And it may intoxicate you!

"But Desgenais loves his mistress, since he keeps her; he must, therefore, have a peculiar fashion of loving? No, he has not; his fashion of loving is not love, and he cares no more for the woman who merits affection than for her who is unworthy. He loves no one, simply and truly.

"What has led him to this? Was he born thus? To love is as natural as to eat and to drink. He is not a man. Is he a dwarf or a giant? Is he always so impassive? Upon what does he feed, what beverage does he drink? Behold him at thirty like old Mithridates; poisons are his familiar friends.

"There is the great secret, my child, the key you must grasp. By whatever process of reasoning debauchery may be defended, it will be proven that it is natural at a given day, hour, or night, but not to-morrow nor every day. There is not a nation on earth which has not considered woman either the companion and consolation of man or the sacred instrument of life, and has not under either of these two forms honored her. And yet here is an armed warrior who leaps into the abyss that God has dug with His own hands between man and brute; as well might he deny that fact. What mute Titan is this who dares repress under the kisses of the body the love of the soul, and place on human lips the stigma of the brute, the seal of eternal silence?

"There is a word that should be studied. In it you hear the faint moan of those dismal labyrinths we know as secret societies, mysteries that the angels of destruction whisper in the ear of night as it descends upon the earth. That man is better or worse than God has made him. He is like a sterile woman, in whom nature has not completed her work, or there is distilled in the shadow of his life some venomous poison.

"Ah! yes, neither occupation nor study has been able to cure you, my friend. To forget and to learn, that is your device. You turn the leaves of dead books; you are too young for antiquities. Look about you, the pale throng of men surrounds you. The eyes of life's sphynx glitter in the midst of divine hieroglyphics; decipher the book of life! Courage, scholar, launch out on the Styx, the deathless flood, and let the waves of sorrow waft you to oblivion or to God."