THE following morning the first question that occurred to my mind was:
"What shall I do?"
I had no occupation. I had studied medicine and law without being able to
decide on either of the two professions; I had worked for a banker for
six months and my services were so unsatisfactory that I was obliged to
resign to avoid being discharged. My studies had been varied but
superficial; my memory was active but not retentive.
My only treasure after love, was independence. In my childhood I had
devoted myself to a morose cult, and had, so to speak, consecrated my
heart to it. One day my father, solicitous about my future, spoke to me
of several careers between which he allowed me to choose. I was leaning
on the window-sill, looking at a solitary poplar-tree that was swaying in
the breeze down in the garden. I thought over all the various occupations
and wondered which one I should choose. I turned them all over, one after
another, in my mind, and then not feeling inclined to any of them I
allowed my thoughts to wander. Suddenly it seemed to me that I felt the
earth move and that a secret invisible force was slowly dragging me into
space and becoming tangible to my senses; I saw it mount into the sky; I
seemed to be on a ship; the poplar near my window resembled a mast; I
arose, stretched out my arms, and cried:
"It is little enough to be a passenger for one day on this ship floating
through space; it is little enough to be a man, a black point on that
ship; I will be a man but not any particular kind of man."
Such was the first vow that, at the age of fourteen, I pronounced in the
face of nature, and since then I have tried to do nothing except in
obedience to my father, never being able to overcome my repugnance.
I was therefore free, not through indolence but by choice; loving,
moreover, all that God had made and very little that man had made. Of
life I knew nothing but love, of the world only my mistress, and I did
not care to know anything more. So falling in love upon leaving college I
sincerely believed that it was for life and every other thought
disappeared.
My life was sedentary. I was accustomed to pass the day with my mistress;
my greatest pleasure was to lead her through the fields on beautiful
summer days, the sight of nature in her splendor having ever been for me
the most powerful incentive to love. In winter, as she enjoyed society,
we attended numerous balls and masquerades, and because I thought of no
one but her I fondly imagined her equally true to me.
To give you an idea of my state of mind I can not do better than compare
it to one of those rooms such as we see in these days where are collected
and confounded all the furniture of all times and all countries. Our age
has no form of its own. We have impressed the seal of our time on neither
our houses nor our gardens nor anything that is ours. On the street may
be seen men who have their beards cut as in the time of Henry III, others
who are clean shaven, others who have their hair arranged as in the time
of Raphael, others as in the time of Christ. So the homes of the rich are
cabinets of curiosities: the antique, the Gothic, the taste of the
Renaissance, that of Louis XIII, all pell-mell. In short, we have every
century except our own--a thing which has never been seen at any other
epoch: eclecticism is our taste; we take everything we find, this for
beauty, that for utility, this other for antiquity, such another for its
ugliness even, so that we live surrounded by debris as though the end of
the world were at hand.
Such was the state of my mind; I had read much; moreover I had learned to
paint. I knew by heart a great many things, but nothing in order, so that
my head was like a sponge, swollen but empty. I fell in love with all the
poets one after another; but being of an impressionable nature the last
comer always disgusted me with the rest. I had made of myself a great
warehouse of ruins, so that having no more thirst after drinking of the
novel and the unknown, I became a ruin myself.
Nevertheless, about that ruin there was still something of youth: it was
the hope of my heart which was still childlike.
That hope, which nothing had withered or corrupted and that love had
exalted to excess, had now received a mortal wound. The perfidy of my
mistress had struck deep, and when I thought of it, I felt in my soul a
swooning away, a convulsive flutter as of a wounded bird in agony.
Society which works so much evil is like that serpent of the Indies whose
dwelling is the leaf of a plant which cures its sting; it presents, in
nearly every case, the remedy by the side of the suffering it has caused.
For example, the man whose life is one of routine, who has his business
cares to claim his attention upon rising, visits at such an hour, loves
at another, can lose his mistress and suffer no evil effects. His
occupations and his thoughts are like impassive soldiers ranged in line
of battle; a single shot strikes one down, his neighbors fill up the gap
and the line is intact.
I had not that resource since I was alone: nature, the kind mother,
seemed, on the contrary, more vast and more empty than ever. If I had
been able to forget my mistress I would have been saved. How many there
are who can be cured with even less than that. Such men are incapable of
loving a faithless woman and their conduct, under the circumstances, is
admirable in its firmness. But is it thus that one loves at nineteen
when, knowing nothing of the world, desiring everything, the young man
feels within him the germ of all the passions? On the right, on the left,
below, on the horizon, everywhere some voice which calls him. All is
desire, all is reverie. There is no reality which holds him when the
heart is young; there is no oak so gnarled that it may not give birth to
a dryad; and if one had a hundred arms one need not fear to open them;
one has but to clasp his mistress and all is well.
As for me I did not understand what else there was to do besides love,
and when any one spoke to me of another occupation I did not reply. My
passion for my mistress had something fierce about it, as all my life had
been severely monachal. I wish to cite a single example. She gave me her
portrait in miniature in a medallion; I wore it over my heart, a practise
much affected by men; but one day while idly rummaging about a shop
filled with curiosities I found an iron "discipline whip," such as was
used by the mediaeval flagellants; at the end of this whip was a metal
plate bristling with sharp iron points; I had the medallion riveted to
this plate and then returned it to its place over my heart. The sharp
points pierced my bosom with every movement and caused such a strange
voluptuous anguish that I sometimes pressed it down with my hand in order
to intensify the sensation. I knew very well that I was committing folly;
love is responsible for many others.
When that woman deceived me I removed the cruel medallion. I can not tell
with what sadness I detached that iron girdle and what a sigh escaped me
when it was gone.
"Ah! poor wounds!" I said, "you will soon heal, but what balm is there
for that other deeper wound?"
I had reason to hate that woman, she was, so to speak, mingled with the
blood of my veins; I cursed her but I dreamed of her. What could I do
with a dream? By what effort of the will could I drown memory of flesh
and blood? Macbeth having killed Duncan saw that the ocean would not wash
his hands clean again; it would not have washed away my wounds. I said to
Desgenais: "When I sleep, her head is on my pillow."
My life had been wrapped up in that woman; to doubt her was to doubt all;
to deny her, to curse all; to lose her, to renounce all. I no longer went
out; the world seemed to be peopled with monsters, with horned deer and
crocodiles. To all that was said to distract my mind I replied:
"Yes, that is all very well, but you may rest assured I shall do nothing
of the kind."
I sat in my window and said:
"She will come, I am sure of it, she is coming, she is turning the corner
at this moment, I can feel her approach. She can no more live without me
than I without her. What shall I say? How shall I receive her?"
Then the thought of her perfidy recurred to me.
"Ah! let her come! I will kill her!"
Since my last letter I had heard nothing of her.
"What is she doing?" I asked myself. "She loves another? Then I will love
another also. Whom shall I love?"
While casting about I heard a far distant voice crying:
"Thou, love another? Two beings who love, who embrace, and who are not
thou and I! Is such a thing possible? Are you a fool?"
"Coward!" said Desgenais, "when will you forget that woman? Is she such a
great loss? Take the first comer and console yourself."
"No," I replied, "it is not such a great loss. Have I not done what I
ought? Have I not driven her away from here? What have you to say to
that? The rest concerns me; the bull wounded in the arena is at liberty
to go to sleep in a corner with the sword of the matador in his shoulder,
and die in peace. What can I do, tell me? What do you mean by first
comer? You will show me a cloudless sky, trees and houses, men who talk,
drink, sing, women who dance and horses that gallop. All that is not
life, it is the noise of life. Go, go, leave me in peace."