UPON returning to my apartments I found a large box in the center of the
room. One of my aunts had died and I was one of the heirs to her fortune,
which was not large. The box contained, among other things, a number of
musty old books. Not knowing what to do and being affected with ennui, I
began to read one of them. They were for the most part romances of the
time of Louis XV; my pious aunt had probably inherited them herself and
never read them, for they were, so to speak, catechisms of vice.
I was singularly disposed to reflect on everything that came to my
notice, to give everything a mental and moral significance; I treated
events as pearls in a necklace which I tried to string together.
It struck me that there was something significant about the arrival of
these books at this time. I devoured them with a bitterness and a sadness
born of despair. "Yes, you are right," I said to myself, "you alone
possess the secret of life, you alone dare to say that nothing is true
and real but debauchery, hypocrisy and corruption. Be my friends, throw
on the wound in my soul your corrosive poisons, teach me to believe in
you."
While buried in these shadows I allowed my favorite poets and text-books
to accumulate dust. I even ground them under my feet in excess of wrath.
"You wretched dreamers," I said to them; "you who teach me only
suffering, miserable shufflers of words, charlatans if you knew the
truth, fools if you speak in good faith, liars in either case, who make
fairy tales of the human heart, I will burn every one of you!"
Then tears came to my aid and I perceived that there was nothing real but
my grief. "Very well," I cried, in my delirium, "tell me, good and bad
genii, counsellors for good or evil, tell me what to do! Choose an
arbiter and let him speak."
I seized an old Bible which lay on my table and read the first passage
that caught my eye.
"Reply to me, thou book of God," I said, "what word have you for me?" My
eye fell on this passage in Ecclesiastes, chapter ix:
I pondered all these things in my heart, and I sought diligently
for wisdom. There are just and wise men and their works are in the
hands of God; nevertheless man does not know whether he is worthy
of love or hatred.
And the future is unknown, for there is one event to the righteous
and to the wicked; to the good, and to the clean, and to the
unclean; to him that sacrificeth and him that sacrificeth not. The
righteous is treated as the sinner and the perjurer as him who
speaks the truth.
There is an evil among all things that are done under the sun, and
there is one event to all. Therefore the hearts of the children of
men are full of evil and madness while they live, and after that
they go to the dead.
When I read these words I was astounded; I did not know that there was
such a sentiment in the Bible. "And thou, too, as all others, thou book
of hope!"
What do the astronomers think when they predict at a given hour and place
the passage of a comet, that most eccentric of celestial travelers? What
do the naturalists think when they reveal the myriad forms of life
concealed in a drop of water? Do they think they have invented what they
see and that their microscopes and lenses make the law of nature? What
did the first lawgiver think when, seeking for the corner-stone in the
social edifice, angered doubtless by some idle importunity, he struck the
tables of brass and felt in his bowels the yearning for a law of
retaliation? Did he then invent justice? And the first who plucked the
fruit planted by his neighbor and who fled cowering under his mantle, did
he invent shame? And he who, having overtaken that same thief who had
robbed him of the product of his toil, forgave him his sin, and instead
of raising his hand to smite him, said, "Sit thou down and eat thy fill";
when after having thus returned good for evil he raised his eyes toward
Heaven and felt his heart quivering, tears welling from his eyes, and his
knees bending to the earth, did he invent virtue? Oh! Heaven! here is a
woman who speaks of love and who deceives me, here is a man who speaks of
friendship, and who counsels me to seek consolation in debauchery; here
is another woman who weeps and would console me with the flesh; here is a
Bible that speaks of God and says: "Perhaps; there is one event to the
righteous and to the wicked."
I ran to the open window: "Is it true that you are empty?" I cried,
looking up at the pale expanse of sky which spread above me. "Reply,
reply! Before I die grant that I may clasp in these arms of mine
something more than a dream!"
Profound silence reigned. As I stood with arms outstretched, eyes lost in
space, a swallow uttered a plaintive cry; in spite of myself I followed
it with my eyes; while the swallow disappeared from sight like a flash, a
little girl passed, singing.