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The Confession of a Child of The Century, a novel by Alfred de Musset |
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Part 4 - Chapter 3 |
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_ PART IV CHAPTER III OUR quarrel had been less sad than our reconciliation; it was attended, on Brigitte's part, by a mystery which frightened me at first and then planted in my soul the seeds of constant dread. There developed in me, in spite of my struggles, the two elements of misfortune which the past had bequeathed me: at times, furious jealousy attended by reproaches and insults; at other times, a cruel gaiety, an affected cheerfulness that mockingly outraged whatever I held most dear. Thus, the inexorable specters of the past pursued me without respite; thus, Brigitte seeing herself treated alternately, as a faithless mistress and a shameless woman, fell into a condition of melancholy that clouded our entire life; and worst of all, that sadness even, the cause of which I knew, was not the most burdensome of our sorrows. I was young and I loved pleasure; that daily association with a woman older than I who suffered and languished, that face more and more serious, which was always before me, all that repelled my youth and aroused within me bitter regrets for the liberty I had lost. When we were passing through the forest by the beautiful light of the moon, we both experienced a profound melancholy. Brigitte looked at me in pity. We sat down on a rock near a wild gorge; we passed two entire hours there; her half-veiled eyes plunged into my soul athwart the glance from mine, then wandered to nature, to the heavens and the valley. "Ah! my dear child," she said, "how I pity you! You do not love me." In order to reach that rock, one must travel two leagues; two more in returning makes four. Brigitte was afraid of neither fatigue nor darkness. We set out at eleven at night, expecting to reach home some time in the morning. When we went on long tramps, she always dressed in a blue blouse and the apparel of a man, saying that skirts were not made for bushes. She walked before me in the sand with a firm step and such a charming melange of feminine delicacy and childlike temerity, that I stopped every few moments to look at her. It seemed that, once started, she had to accomplish a difficult but sacred task; she walked in front like a soldier, her arms swinging, her voice ringing through the woods in song; suddenly she turned, came to me, and kissed me. This was going; on the return, she leaned on my arm; then more songs; there were confidences, tender avowals in low tones, although we were alone, two leagues from anywhere. I do not recall a single word spoken on the return that was not of love or friendship. One night, we struck out through the woods, leaving the road which led to the rock. Brigitte was tramping along so stoutly, her little velvet cap on her light hair made her look so much like a resolute gamin, that I forgot that she was a woman when there were no obstacles in our path. More than once, she was obliged to call me to her aid when I, without thinking of her, had pushed on ahead. I can not describe the effect produced on me in the clear night air, in the midst of the forest, by that voice of a woman, half-joyous and half-plaintive, coming from that little schoolboy body wedged in between roots and trunks of trees, unable to advance. I took her in my arms. "Come, madame," I cried, laughing, "you are a pretty little mountaineer, but you are blistering your white hands and in spite of your hobnailed shoes, your stick and your martial air, I see that you must be carried." We arrived at the rock breathless, about my body was strapped a leather belt to which was attached a wicker bottle. When we were seated on the rock, my dear Brigitte asked for the bottle; I had lost it, as well as a tinder-box which served another purpose: that was to read the inscriptions on the guide-posts when we went astray, which occurred frequently. At such times, I would climb the posts and read the half-effaced inscription by the light of the tinder-box; all that playfully, like the children that we were. At a cross-road, we would have to examine not one guide-post, but five or six until the right one was found. But this time we had lost our baggage on the way. "Very well," said Brigitte, "we will pass the night here as I am rather tired. This rock will make a hard bed but we can cover it with dry leaves. Let us sit down and make the best of it." The night was superb; the moon was rising behind us; I looked at it over my left shoulder. Brigitte was watching the lines of the wooded hills as they began to design themselves against the background of sky. As the light flooded the copse and threw its halo over sleeping nature, Brigitte's song became more gentle and more melancholy. Then she bent over, and, throwing her arms around my neck, said: "Do not think that I do not understand your heart or that I would reproach you for what you make me suffer. It is not your fault, my friend, if you have not the power to forget your past life; you have loved me in good faith and I shall never regret, although I should die for it, the day I gave myself to you. You thought you were entering upon a new life and that with me, you would forget the women who had deceived you. Alas! Octave, I used to smile at that precocious experience which you said you had been through, and of which I heard you boast like a child who knows nothing of life. I thought I had but to will it, and all that there was that was good in your heart would come to your lips with my first kiss. You, too, believed it, but we were both mistaken. O my child! You have, in your heart, a plague that can not be cured; that woman who deceived you, how you must have loved her! Yes, more than you love me, alas! much more, since with all my poor love I can not efface her image; she must have deceived you most cruelly since it is in vain that I am faithful! And the others, those wretches who then poisoned your youth! The pleasures they sold must have been terrible since you ask me to imitate them! You remember them with me! Alas! my dear child, that is too cruel. I like you better when you are unjust and furious, when you reproach me for imaginary crimes and avenge on me the wrong done you by others, than when you are under the influence of that frightful gaiety, when you assume that air of hideous mockery, when that mask of scorn affronts my eyes. Tell me, Octave, why that? Why those moments when you speak of love with contempt and rail at the most sacred mysteries of love? What frightful power over your irritable nerves has that life you have led, that such insults mount to your lips in spite of you? Yes, in spite of you, for your heart is noble, you blush at your own blasphemy; you love me too much not to suffer when you see me suffer. Ah! I know you now. The first time I saw you thus, I was seized with a feeling of terror of which I can give you no idea. I thought you were only a roue, that you had deliberately deceived me by feigning a love you did not feel, and that I saw you such as you really were. O my friend! I thought it was time to die; what a night I passed! You do not know my life; you do not know that I, who speak to you, have had an experience as terrible as yours. Alas! life is sweet only to those who do not know life. "You are not, my dear Octave, the only man I have loved. There is hidden in my heart a fatal story that I wish you to know. My father destined me, when I was quite young, for the only son of an old friend. They were neighbors and each owned a little domain of almost equal value. The two families saw each other every day and lived, so to speak, together. My father died; my mother had been dead some time. I lived with an aunt whom you know. A journey she was compelled to take, forced her to confide me to the care of my future father-in-law. He called me his daughter and it was so well known about the country that I was to marry his son that we were allowed the greatest liberty together. "That young man, whose name you need not know, appeared to love me. What had been friendship from infancy, became love in time. He began to tell me of the happiness that awaited us; he spoke of his impatience, I was only one year younger than he; but he had made the acquaintance of a man of dissipated habits who lived in the vicinity, a sort of adventurer, and had listened to his evil suggestions. While I was yielding to his caresses with the confidence of a child, he resolved to deceive his father and to abandon me after having ruined me. "His father called us into his room one evening and, in the presence of the family, set the day of our wedding. The very evening before that day, he met me in the garden and spoke to me of love with more force than usual; he said that, since the time was set, we were just the same as married, and for that matter had been in the eyes of God, ever since our birth. I have no other excuse to offer than my youth, my ignorance and my confidence in him. I gave myself to him before becoming his wife, and eight days afterward he left his father's house; he fled with a woman with whom his new friend had made him acquainted; he wrote that he had set out for Germany and that we would never see him again. "That is, in a word, the story of my life; my husband knew it as you now know it. I am proud, my child, and I have sworn that no man should ever make me again suffer what I suffered then. I saw you and forgot my oath, but not my sorrow. You must treat me gently; if you are sick, I am also; we must care for each other. You see, Octave, I too know what it is to cherish up memories of the past. It inspires me at times with cruel terror; I should have more courage than you, for perhaps I have suffered more. It is my place to begin; my heart is not sure of itself, I am still very feeble; my life in this village was so tranquil before you came! I had promised myself that it should never change! All that, makes me exacting. Ah! well, it does not matter, I am yours. You have told me, in your better moments, that Providence appointed me to watch over you as a mother. Yes, when you make me suffer, I do not look upon you as a lover, but as a sick child, fretful and rebellious, that I must care for and cure in order that I may always keep him and love him. May God give me that power!" she added, looking up to heaven. "May God, who sees me, who hears us, may the God of mothers and of lovers, permit me to accomplish that task! When I feel as though I would sink under it, when my pride rebels, when my heart is breaking, when all my life--" She could not finish; her tears choked her. O God! I saw her there on her knees, her hands clasped on the rock; she swayed in the breeze as did the bushes about us. Frail and sublime creature; she prayed for her love. I raised her in my arms. "O my only friend!" I cried. "Oh! my mistress, my mother, and my sister! Pray also for me, that I may be able to love you as you deserve. Pray that I may have the courage to live; that my heart may be cleansed in your tears; that it may become a holy offering before God and that we may share it together." All was silent about us; above our heads, spread the heavens resplendent with stars. "Do you remember," I said, "do you remember the first day?" From that night, we never returned to that spot. That rock was an altar which has retained its purity; it is one of the visions of my life which still passes before my eyes wreathed in spotless white. _ |
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