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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 4 |
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_ PART IV CHAPTER IV AS I was crossing the public square one evening, I saw two men standing together; one of them said: "It appears to me that he has ill-treated her." "It is her fault," replied the other; "why choose such a man? He has known only public women; she is paying the price of her folly." I advanced in the darkness to see who was speaking thus, and to hear more if possible; but they passed on as soon as they spied me. I found Brigitte much disturbed; her aunt was seriously ill; she had time for only a few words with me. I did not see her for an entire week; I knew that she had summoned a physician from Paris; finally, she sent for me. "My aunt is dead," she said; "I lose the only one left me on earth, I am now alone in the world and I am going to leave the country." "Am I, then, nothing to you?" "Yes, my friend; you know that I love you, and I often believe that you love me. But how can I count on you? I am your mistress, alas! but you are not my lover. It is for you that Shakespeare has written these sad words: 'Make thy doublet of changeable taffeta, for thy mind is a very opal.' And I, Octave," she added, pointing to her mourning costume, "I am reduced to a single color, and I shall not change it for a long time." "Leave the country if you choose; I will either kill myself or I will follow you. Ah! Brigitte," I continued, throwing myself on my knees before her, "you thought you were alone when your aunt died! That is the most cruel punishment you could inflict on me; never, have I so keenly felt the misery of my love for you. You must retract those terrible words; I deserve them, but they will kill me. O God! can it be true that I count for nothing in your life, or that I am an influence in your life only because of the evil I have done you!" "I do not know," she said, "who is busying himself in our affairs; certain insinuations, mixed with idle gossip, have been set afloat in the village and in the neighboring country. Some say that I have been ruined; others accuse me of imprudence and folly; others represent you as a cruel and dangerous man. Some one has spied into our most secret thoughts; things that I thought no one else knew, events in your life and sad scenes to which they have led, are known to others; my poor aunt spoke to me about it some time since, and she knew it some time before speaking to me. Who knows but what that has hastened her death? When I meet my old friends in the street, they either treat me coldly, or turn aside, even my dear peasant girls, those good girls who love me so much, shrug their shoulders when they see my place empty at the Sunday afternoon balls. How has that come about? I do not know, nor do you, I suppose; but I must go away, I can not endure it. And my aunt's death, so sudden, so unexpected, above all this solitude! this empty room! Courage fails me; my friend, my friend, do not abandon me!" She wept; in an adjoining room, I saw her household goods in disorder, a trunk on the floor, everything indicating preparations for departure. It was evident that, at the time of her aunt's death, Brigitte tried to go away without seeing me but could not. She was so overwhelmed with emotion that she could hardly speak, her condition was pitiful, and it was I who had brought her to it. Not only was she unhappy, but she was insulted in public, and the man who ought to be her support and her consolation in such an hour, was the cause of all her troubles. I felt the wrong I had done her so keenly that I was overcome with shame. After so many promises, so much useless exaltation, so many plans and hopes, what had I, in fact, accomplished in three months! I thought I had a treasure in my heart and there came out of it nothing but malice, the shadow of a dream, and the misfortune of a woman I adored. For the first time, I found myself really face to face with myself; Brigitte reproached me for nothing; she had tried to go away and could not; she was ready to suffer still. I suddenly asked myself if I ought not to leave her, if it was not my duty to flee from her and rid her of the scourge of my presence. I arose and, passing into the next room, sat down on Brigitte's trunk. There, I leaned my head on my hand and sat motionless. I looked about me at the confused piles of goods. Alas! I knew them all; my heart was not so hardened that it could not be moved by the memories which they awakened. I began to calculate all the harm I had done; I saw my dear Brigitte walking under the lindens with her goat beside her. "O man!" I mused, "and by what right? How dared you come to this house and lay hands on this woman? Who has ordained that she should suffer for you? You array yourself in fine linen and set out, sleek and happy, for the home where your mistress languishes; you throw yourself upon the cushions where she has just knelt in prayer, for you and for her, and you gently stroke those delicate hands that still tremble. You think it no evil to inflame a poor heart, and you perorate as warmly in your deliriums of love as the wretched lawyer who comes with red eyes from a suit he has lost. You play the infant prodigy, you make sport of suffering; you find it amusing to occupy your leisure moments, to commit murder by means of little pin pricks. What will you say to the living God when your work is finished? What will become of the woman who loves you? Where will you fall while she leans on you for support? With what face will you one day bury your pale and wretched creature, who has just buried the only being who was left to protect her? Yes, yes, you will doubtless have to bury her, for your love kills and consumes; you have devoted her to the furies and it is she who appeases them. If you follow that woman, you will be the cause of her death. Take care! her guardian angel hesitates; he has just knocked at the door of this house, in order to frighten away a fatal and shameful passion! He inspired Brigitte with the idea of flight; at this moment he may be whispering in her ear his final warning. O you assassin! You murderer! beware! it is a matter of life and death." Thus, I communed with myself; then on the sofa I caught sight of a little gingham dress, folded and ready to be packed in the trunk. It had been the witness of our happy days. I took it up and examined it. "I leave you!" I said to it; "I lose you! O little dress, would you go away without me?" "No, I can not abandon Brigitte; under the circumstances it would be cowardly. She has just lost her aunt, and is all alone; she is exposed to the power of, I know not what enemy. Can it be Mercanson? He may have spoken of my conversation with him, and seeing that I was jealous of Dalens, may have guessed the rest. Assuredly, he is the snake who has been hissing about my well-beloved flower. I must punish him, and I must repair the wrong I have done Brigitte. Fool that I am! I think of leaving her when I ought to consecrate my life to her, to the expiation of my sins, to rendering her happy after the tears I have drawn from her eyes! When I am her only support in the world, her only friend, her only protection! When I ought to follow her to the end of the world, to shelter her with my body, to console her for having loved me, for having given herself to me!" "Brigitte!" I cried, returning to her room, "wait an hour for me and I will return." "Where are you going?" she asked. "Wait for me," I replied, "do not set out without me. Remember the words of Ruth: 'Whither thou goest, I shall go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God, where thou diest will I die, and there will I be buried.'" I left her precipitately, and rushed out to find Mercanson. I was told that he had gone out, and I entered his house to wait for him. I sat in the corner of the room on a priest's chair before a dirty black table. I was becoming impatient when I recalled my duel on account of my first mistress. "I received a wound from a bullet and am still a fool," I said to myself. "What have I come to do here? This priest will not fight; if I seek a quarrel with him, he will say that his priestly robes forbid and he will continue his vile gossip when I have gone. Moreover, for what can I hold him responsible? What is it that has disturbed Brigitte? They say that her reputation has been sullied, that I ill-treat her and that she ought not to submit to it. What stupidity! that concerns no one, there is nothing to do but allow them to talk; in such a case, to notice an insult is to give it importance. Is it possible to prevent provincials from talking about their neighbors? Can any one prevent a gossip from maligning a woman who loves? What measures can be taken to stop a public rumor? If they say that I ill-treat her, it is for me to prove the contrary by my conduct with her, and not by violence. It would be as ridiculous to seek a quarrel with Mercanson, as to leave the country on account of gossip. No, we must not leave the country; that would be a bad move; that would be to say to all the world that there is truth in its idle rumors, and to give excuse to the gossips. We must neither go away nor take any notice of such things." I returned to Brigitte. A half hour had passed, and I had changed my mind three times. I dissuaded her from her plans, I told her what I had just done and why I had not carried out my first impulse. She listened resignedly, yet she wished to go away; the house where her aunt had died had become odious to her, much effort and persuasion on my part were required to get her to consent to remain; finally, I accomplished it. We repeated that we would despise the world, that we would yield nothing, that we would not change our manner of life. I swore that my love should console her for all her sorrows, and she pretended to hope for the best. I told her that this circumstance had so enlightened me in the matter of the wrongs I had done her, that my conduct would prove my repentance, that I would drive from me, as a fantom, all the evil that remained in my heart, that henceforth she would not be offended, by either my pride or my caprices; and thus, sad and patient, her arms around my neck, she yielded obedience to the pure caprice that I, myself, mistook for a flash of reason. _ |
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