In the evening of the same day, my beloved Marguerite arrived
unexpectedly at Paris. In the beginning of our separation, I had
been to the last degree punctual in my letters. I had no pleasure
so great, as retiring to my closet, and pouring out my soul to the
most adorable of women. By degrees I relaxed in punctuality. Ordinary
occupations, however closely pursued, have a method in them, that
easily combines with regularity in points of an incidental nature. But
gaming, when pursued with avidity, subverts all order, and forces
every avocation from the place assigned it. When my insane project of
supplying the inadequateness of my fortune by this expedient began
to produce an effect exactly opposite, I could not, but with the
extremest difficulty, string my mind to write to the mistress of my
soul. I endeavoured not to think, with distinctness and attention, of
the persons whose happiness was most nearly involved with mine. I said
to myself, Yet another venture must be tried; fortune shall change
the animosity with which she has lately pursued me; I will repair the
breaches that have been sustained; and I shall then return with tenfold
avidity to subjects that at present I dare not fix my mind upon. My
letters were accordingly short, unfrequent, and unsatisfactory; and
those of Marguerite discovered increasing anguish, perturbation, and
anxiety. What a change in the minds of both had the lapse of a few
months produced! Not that my attachment had suffered the diminution
of a single particle; but that attachment, which had lately been the
source of our mutual felicity, was now fraught only with distress.
My mind was filled with horrors; and Marguerite expected from me an
encouragement and consolation in absence, which, alas, I had it not in
my power to give!
I had now continued in Paris for a time vastly greater than I had
originally proposed. After having remained more than ten days without
receiving one word of intelligence, a letter of mine was delivered to
Marguerite, more short, mysterious, and distressing to her feelings,
than any that had preceded. The ten days’ silence, from me who at
first had never missed an opportunity of pouring out my soul to her,
and contributing to her pleasure, was exquisitely painful. There
is scarcely any thing that produces such a sickness of the heart
as the repeated prorogation of hope. But, when the letter arrived
that had been so anxiously looked for, when the hand-writing of the
superscription was recognised, when the letter was treasured up for the
impatiently desired moment of solitude, that the sacred emotions of
the heart might suffer no interruption, and when it at last appeared
so cold, so ominous, so withering to the buds of affection, the
determination of Marguerite was speedily formed. The relations that
bound us together were of too mighty a value to be dispensed or to be
trifled with. She felt them as the very cords of existence. For ten
years she had known no solace that was disconnected from my idea, no
care but of our own happiness and that of our offspring. Benevolent
she was almost beyond human example, and interested for the welfare of
all she knew; but these were brief and mutable concerns; they were not
incorporated with the stamina of her existence. I was the whole world
to her; she had no idea of satisfaction without me. Her firmness had
been sufficiently tried by the interposal of separation and absence.
How was she to interpret the obscurity that had now arisen? Had I
forgotten my family and my wife? Had I been corrupted and debauched by
that Paris, the effects of which upon my character her father had so
deeply apprehended? Had I, in contempt of every thing sacred, entered
into some new attachment? Had the attractions of some new beauty in the
metropolis made me indifferent to the virtue of my children, and the
life of their mother? Perhaps the length of our attachment had infected
me with satiety, and the inconstancy of my temper had been roused by
the charms of novelty. Perhaps the certainty of her kindness and regard
had no longer allurements for me; and I might be excited to the pursuit
of another by the pleasures of hope combined with uncertainty, and of
a coyness, that seemed to promise compliance hereafter, even while it
pronounced a present denial. These were the images that haunted her
mind; they engendered all the wildness, and all the torments, of a
delirious paroxysm; she resolved that no time should be sacrificed to
needless uncertainty, and that no effort of hers should be unexerted to
prevent the mischief she feared.
It was evening when she arrived. I was upon the point of repairing to
that scene of nightly resort, the source of all my guilt and all my
miseries. I enquired of my son’s valet where he was, and how he had
been in the course of the day. He was gone to bed: he had appeared
unusually sad, sometimes in tears; and, while he was undressing, had
sighed deeply two or three times. While I was collecting this account
in my own apartment, the gates of the hotel opened, and a number of
horsemen entered the court-yard. I was somewhat surprised; because,
though I was accustomed to see much company, few of my acquaintance
visited me at so late an hour, except on the evenings appropriated to
receive them. I crossed the saloon to enquire. One of the servants
exclaimed, “It is Bernardin’s voice: it must be my mistress that is
come!”
Nothing could be further from my mind than the thought of her arrival.
I flew through the passage; I was on the spot the moment that the
servant prepared to conduct his mistress from the litter; I received
Marguerite in my arms, and led her into the house. If I had expected
her arrival, I should infallibly have met her at this moment with
anxiety and confusion; I should have gone round the circle of my
thoughts, and should not have had confidence to encounter the beam of
her eye. But the event was so unexpected as to drive all other ideas
from my mind; and, in consequence, I enjoyed several minutes,--ages,
rather let me say,--of the sincerest transport. I kissed the mistress
of my soul with ecstasy; I gazed upon her well known lineaments and
features; I listened to the pleasing melody of her voice; I was
intoxicated with delight. Upon occasions like this, it seems as if
every former joy that had marked the various periods of intercourse
distilled its very spirit and essence, to compose a draught, ten times
more delicious and refined than had ever before been tasted. Our
meeting was like awaking from the dead; it was the emancipation of the
weary captive, who exchanges the dungeon’s gloom for the lustre of the
morning, and who feels a celestial exhilaration of heart, the very
memory of which had been insensibly wearing away from his treacherous
brain. All my senses partook of the rapture. Marguerite seemed to shed
ambrosial odours round her; her touch was thrilling; her lips were
nectar; her figure was that of a descended deity!
Her pleasure was not less than mine. It is indeed absurd, it may
be termed profanation, to talk of solitary pleasure. No sensation
ordinarily distinguished by that epithet can endure the test of a
moment’s inspection, when compared with a social enjoyment. It is then
only that a man is truly pleased, when pulse replies to pulse, when
the eyes discourse eloquently to each other, when in responsive tones
and words the soul is communicated. Altogether, we are conscious of a
sober, a chaste, and dignified intoxication, an elevation of spirit,
that does not bereave the mind of itself, and that endures long enough
for us to analyse and savour the causes of our joy.
For some time we rested on a sofa, each filled and occupied with the
observation of the other. My eyes assured Marguerite of the constancy
of my affection; my kisses were those of chaste, undivided, entire
attachment.
Our words were insignificant and idle, the broken and incoherent
phrases of a happiness that could not be silent. At length Marguerite
exclaimed, “It is enough; my fears are vanished; I have no questions
to ask, no doubts to remove. Yet why, my Reginald, did you suffer
those doubts to gather, those fears to accumulate? Surely you knew the
singleness of my affection! How many painful days and hours might you
have saved me, almost by a word!”
“Forgive me, my love,” replied I. “Waste not the golden hour of meeting
in recrimination! Feeling, as your angelic goodness now makes me feel,
I wonder at myself, that I could for one moment have consented to
separation; that I could have thought any thing but this existence; or
that, having experienced the joys that you have bestowed, I could lose
all image of the past, and, dwelling in a desert, imagine it paradise!”
“Recrimination!” rejoined Marguerite. “No, my love; you make me too
happy to leave room for any thing but gratitude and affection! Forgive
me, Reginald, if I pretend that, in meeting you thus, I find myself
your superior in happiness and love. You only awake from lethargy,
forgetfulness of yourself and--of me; but I awake from anguish, a
separation, that I desired not at first, and of which I hourly wished
to see an end, from doubts that would intrude, and refused to be
expelled, from the incessant contemplation and regret of a felicity,
once possessed, but possessed no longer! Melancholy ideas, gloomy
prognostics overspread my sleepless nights, and bedewed my pillow
with tears! This it is, that, at last, has driven me from my family
and daughters, resolved to obtain the certainty of despair, or the
dispersion of my fears! Have I known all this, and think you that I do
not enjoy with rapture this blissful moment?”
While we were thus conversing, Charles entered the room. He was not
yet asleep when his mother arrived: he heard her voice; and hastened
to put on his clothes, that he might rush into her arms. The pleasure
Marguerite had conceived from our meeting, and the affectionate
serenity that had taken possession of her soul, infused double ardour
into the embraces she bestowed on her son. He gazed earnestly in her
face; he kissed her with fervency; but was silent.
“Why, Charles!” said she, “what is the matter with you? Are not you
glad to see me?”
“That I am, mamma! So glad, that I do not know what to do with myself!
I was afraid I never should have been glad again!”
“Pooh, boy! what do you mean? You were not mother-sick, were you?”
“Yes, indeed, I was sick, sick at heart! Not that I am a coward! I
think that I could have been satisfied to have been without either my
father or you for a little while. But papa is so altered, you cannot
think! He never smiles and looks happy; and, when I see him, instead of
making me joyful, as it used to do, it makes me sad!”
“Dear Reginald!” replied the mother, looking at me, “is it possible
that, while my heart was haunted with fear and suspicions, separation
alone should have had such an effect on you?”
“I dare say it was that,” interposed the boy. “I could not make papa
smile, all I could do: but, now you are come, he will soon be well! How
much he must love you, mamma!”
The artless prattle of my son struck anguish to my soul; and awakened a
whole train of tormenting thoughts. Alas! thought I, can it indeed be
love, that thus contrives against the peace of its object? Would to
God, my child! that my thoughts were as simple and pure as thy innocent
bosom!
“And yet,” added the boy, as if recollecting himself, “if he could not
see you, sure that was no reason for him to avoid me? He seemed as
much afraid of me, as I have seen some of my play-fellows of a snake!
Indeed, mamma, it was a sad thing that, when I wanted him to kiss me
and press me to his bosom, he shrunk away from me! There now! it was
just so, as he looks now, that papa used to frown upon me, I cannot
tell how often! Now is not that ugly, mamma?”
I could no longer govern the tumult of my thoughts. “Peace, urchin!”
cried I. “Why did you come to mar the transport of our meeting? Just
now, Marguerite, I forgot myself, and was happy! Now all the villain
rises in my soul!”
My wife was so astonished at the perturbation of my manner, and at the
words I uttered, that she was scarcely able to articulate. “Reginald!”
in broken accents she exclaimed--“my love!--my husband!”
“No matter,” said I. “It shall yet be well! My heart assures me it
shall!--Be not disturbed, my love! I will never cause you a moment’s
anguish! I would sooner die a thousand deaths!--Forget the odious
thoughts that poor Charles has excited in me so unseasonably! They were
mere idle words! Depend upon it they were!”
While I was speaking, Marguerite hid her face upon the sofa. I took
her hand, and by my caresses endeavoured to soothe and compose her. At
length, turning to me,--“Reginald!” said she, in a voice of anguish,
“do you then endeavour to hide from me the real state of your thoughts?
Was the joy that attended our meeting perishable and deceitful? After
ten years of unbounded affection and confidence, am I denied to be the
partner of your bosom?”
“No, Marguerite, no! this was but the thought of a moment! By
to-morrow’s dawn it shall have no existence in my bosom. Why should
I torment you with what so soon shall have no existence to myself?
Meanwhile, be assured, my love (instead of suffering diminution) is
more full, more fervent and entire, than it ever was!”
At this instant my mind experienced an extraordinary impression.
Instead of being weaned, by the presence of this admirable woman, from
my passion for gaming, it became stronger than ever. If Charles had
not entered at the critical moment he did, I should have remained with
Marguerite, and, amidst the so long untasted solace of love, have,
at least for this night, forgotten my cares. But that occurrence had
overturned every thing, had uncovered the wounds of my bosom, and
awakened conceptions that refused to be laid to sleep again. The arms
of my wife, that were about to embrace me, suddenly became to me a
nest of scorpions. I could as soon have rested and enjoyed myself upon
the top of Vesuvius, when it flamed. New as I was to this species of
anguish, tranquilly and full of virtuous contentment as I had hitherto
passed the years of my married state, the pangs of a guilty conscience
I was wholly unable to bear. I rose from my seat, and was upon the
point of quitting the room.
Marguerite perceived by my manner that there was something
extraordinary passing in my mind. “Where are you going, Reginald?” said
she.
I answered with a slight nod. “Not far,” I replied, attempting an air
of apathy and unconcern.
She was not satisfied. “You are not going out?” she enquired.
I returned to where I had been sitting. “My love, I was going out at
the moment of your arrival. It is necessary, I assure you. I hope I
shall soon be back. I am sorry I am obliged to leave you. Compose
yourself. You are in want of rest, and had better go to bed.”
“Stop, Reginald! Afford me a minute’s leisure before you depart! Leave
us, Charles! Good night, my dear boy! Kiss me; remember that your
mother is now in the same house with you; and sleep in peace.”
The boy quitted the room.
“Reginald!” said the mother, “I have no wish to control your desires,
or be a spy upon your actions; but your conduct seems so extraordinary
in this instance, as to dispense me from the observation of common
rules. I have always been a complying wife; I have never set myself
in contradiction to your will; I appeal to yourself for the truth
of this. I despise, however, those delicacies, an adherence to which
would entail upon us the sacrifice of all that is most valuable in
human life. Can I shut my ears upon the mysterious expressions which
Charles’s complaints have extorted from you? Can I be insensible to the
extraordinary purpose you declare of leaving me, when I have yet been
scarcely half an hour under the roof with you? Before Charles came in,
you seem to have entertained no such design.”
“My love,” replied I, “how seriously you comment upon the most
insignificant incident! Is it extraordinary that your unexpected
arrival should at first have made me forget an engagement that I now
recollect?”
“St. Leon,” answered my wife, “before you indulge in surprise at my
earnestness, recollect the circumstances that immediately preceded
it. Through successive weeks I have waited for some satisfactory and
agreeable intelligence from you. I had a right before this to have
expected your return. Uncertainty and a thousand fearful apprehensions
have at length driven me from my home, and brought me to Paris. I
am come here for satisfaction to my doubts, and peace to my anxious
heart. Wonder not, therefore, if you find something more earnest and
determined in my proceedings now, than upon ordinary occasions. Give
me, I conjure you, give me ease and relief, if you are able! If not, at
least allow me this consolation, to know the worst!”
“Be pacified, Marguerite!” I rejoined. “I am grieved, Heaven knows how
deeply grieved, to have occasioned you a moment’s pain. But, since
you lay so much stress upon this circumstance, depend upon it, I will
postpone the business I was going about, and stay with you.”
This concession, voluntary and sincere, produced an effect that I had
not foreseen. Marguerite gazed for a moment in my face, and then threw
herself upon my neck.
“Forgive me, my beloved husband!” she cried. “You indeed make me
ashamed of myself. I feel myself inexcusable. I feel that I have been
brooding over imaginary evils, and creating the misery that corroded my
heart. How inexpressibly you rise my superior! But I will conquer my
weakness. I insist upon your going to the engagement you have made, and
will henceforth place the most entire confidence in your prudence and
honour.”
Every word of this speech was a dagger to my heart. What were my
feelings, while this admirable woman was taking shame to herself
for her suspicions, and pouring out her soul in commendation of my
integrity! I looked inward, and found every thing there the reverse
of her apprehension, a scene of desolation and remorse. I embraced
her in silence. My heart panted upon her bosom, and seemed bursting
with a secret that it was death to reveal. I ought, in return for her
generosity, to have given up my feigned engagement, and devoted this
night at least to console and pacify her. But I could not, and I dared
not. The wound of my bosom was opened, and would not be closed. The
more I loved her for her confidence, the less I could endure myself in
her presence. To play the hypocrite for so many hours, to assume a face
of tranquillity and joy while all within was tumult and horror, was a
task too mighty for human powers to execute. I accepted of Marguerite’s
permission, and left her. Even in the short interval before I quitted
the house, my carriage was near to betraying me. I could perceive her
watchful of my countenance, as if again suspicious that some fatal
secret lurked in my mind. She said nothing further upon the subject
however, and I presently escaped the inquisition of her eye.
It is scarcely necessary to describe the state of my mind as I passed
along the streets. It is sufficient to say that every thing I had felt
before from the passion of gaming was trivial to the sensations that
now occupied me. Now first it stood confessed before me, a demon that
poisoned all my joys, that changed the transport of a meeting with
the adored of my soul into anguish, that drove me forth from her yet
untasted charms a solitary wanderer on the face of the earth. My busy
soul drew forth at length the picture of what this encounter would have
been, if it had been sanctified with the stamp of conscious innocence.
At one moment I felt myself the most accursed of mankind; I believed
that he who could find, as I did, barrenness and blasting in the
choicest of Heaven’s blessings, must be miserable beyond precedent
or hope. Shortly after, however, I reviewed again the image of my
poison, and found in it the promise of a cure. The more desperate my
case appeared to me, with the greater insanity of expectation did I
assure myself that this one night should retrieve all my misfortunes.
In giving to it this destination indeed, I should afflict the gentle
bosom of my wife but too probably with some hours of uneasiness. But
the event would richly repay her for so transitory a suffering; I would
then open my whole mind to her. I would practise no more reserves; I
should no longer be driven to the refuge of a vile hypocrisy. I would
bid farewell to the frowns and the caresses of fortune. I would require
of her no further kindnesses. If I were incapable myself of a rigid
economy, I would commit implicitly to Marguerite the disposal of my
income, whom I knew to be every way qualified for the office. With
these reflections I nerved my mind to the most decisive adventures.
Why should I enter into a long detail of the incidents of this crisis?
Soon, though not immediately, I began to lose considerable sums. I
brought with me in the first instance a penetrating eye, a collected
mind, an intellect prepared for unintermitted exertion. Misfortune
subverted all this. My eye grew wild, my soul tempestuous, my thoughts
incoherent and distracted. I was incapable of any thing judicious;
but I was determined to persevere. I played till morning, nor could
the light of morning induce me to desist. The setting sun of that day
beheld me a beggar!
There is a degree of misery, which, as it admits of no description,
so does it leave no distinct traces in the memory. It seems as if
the weakness of the human mind alike incapacitated it to support the
delirium of joy, and the extremity of sorrow. Of what immediately
succeeded the period to which I have conducted my narrative I have
no recollection, but a horror beyond all names of horror, wild,
inexplicable, unintelligible. Let no one, however, imagine, that the
temporary desertion of the soul is any alleviation of its misery. The
mind that sinks under its suffering does not by that conduct shake
off its burden. Rather, ten thousand times rather, would I endure all
the calamities that have ever yet received a name, the sensations and
history of which are capable of being delineated, than sustain that
which has no words by which to express itself, and the conception of
which must be trusted solely to the faculties and sympathy of the
reader. Where is the cold and inapprehensive spirit that talks of
madness as a refuge from sorrow? Oh, dull and unconceiving beyond all
belief! I cannot speak of every species of madness; but I also have
been mad! This I know, that there is a vacancy of soul, where all
appears buried in stupidity, and scarcely deserves the name of thought,
that is more intolerable than the bitterest reflections. This I know,
that there is an incoherence, in which the mind seems to wander without
rudder and pilot, that laughs to scorn the superstitious fictions
of designing priests. Oh, how many sleepless days and weeks did I
endure! the thoughts frantic, the tongue raving! While we can still
adhere, if I may so express myself, to the method of misery, there
is a sort of nameless complacency that lurks under all that we can
endure. We are still conscious that we are men; we wonder at and admire
our powers of being miserable; but, when the masts and tackle of the
intellectual vessel are all swept away, then is the true sadness. We
have no consciousness to sustain us, no sentiment of dignity, no secret
admiration of what we are, still clinging to our hearts.
All this I venture to affirm, with the full recollection of what I
suffered, when restored to my senses, present to my mind.
When the account was closed, and the loss of my last stake had
finished the scene, I rose, and, quitting the fatal spot where these
transactions had passed, entered the street, with a heart oppressed,
and a bursting head. My eyes glared, but I saw nothing, and could think
of nothing. It was already nearly dark; and the day which had been
tempestuous, was succeeded by a heavy and settled rain. I wandered for
some time, not knowing whither I went. My pace, which had at first
been slow, gradually increased, and I traversed the whole city with
a hurried and impatient step. The streets which had contained few
persons at first, gradually lost those few. I was almost alone. I saw
occasionally ragged and houseless misery shrinking under the cover of a
miserable shed; I saw the midnight robber, watching for his prey, and
ready to start upon the unwary passenger. From me he fled; there was
something in my air that impelled even desperate violation to shrink
from the encounter. I continued this incessant, unmeaning exertion for
hours. At length, by an accidental glance of the eye, I found myself at
the gate of my own hotel. Heedless of what I did, I entered; and, as
nature was now completely exhausted within me, sunk down in a sort of
insensibility at the foot of the grand staircase.
This stupor, after a considerable interval, gradually subsided. I
opened my eyes, and saw various figures flitting about me; but I seemed
to myself equally incapable of collecting my thoughts, and of speech.
My understanding indeed shortly became clearer, but an insuperable
reluctance to voluntary exertion hung upon me. I explained myself only
in monosyllables; a sort of instinctive terror of disclosing what had
passed to the admirable woman I had sacrificed maintained in me this
perpetual reserve. For several days together I sat from morning till
night in one immovable posture, nor was any thing of force enough to
awaken me to exertion.