A woman of forty persuaded me that I was her first love; then Ipersuaded myself that I was in love with a Russian great lady, who was living in Paris.The latter was--indeed she still is--one of those incomparable actresses in society, who, in order to surround themselves with a sort of court, composed of admirers who are more or less rewarded, employ all the allurements of luxury, wit, and beauty, but who have not a particle of either imagination or heart, although they fascinate by a display of the most refined fancies and the most vivid emotions.I led the life of a slave to the caprices of this soulless coquette for nearly six months, and learned that women of the fashionable world and women of "the half-world" are very much alike in point of worth.The former are intolerable on account of their lies, their assumption, and their vanity; the others are equally odious by reason of their vulgarity, their stupidity, and their sordid love of lucre.
I forgot all my absurd relations with women of both orders in the excitement of play, and yet I was well aware of the meanness of that diversion, which only ceases to be insipid when it becomes odious, because it is a clever calculation upon money to be gained without working for it.There was in me something at once wildly dissipated and yet disgusted, which drove me to excess, and at the same time inspired me with bitter self-contempt.In the innermost recesses of my being the memory of my father dwelt, and poisoned my thoughts at their source.An impression of dark fatalism invaded my sick mind; it was so strange that I should live as I was living, nevertheless, I did live thus, and the visible "I" had but little likeness to the real.
Upon me, then, poor creature that I was, as upon the whole universe, a fate rested."Let it drive me," I said, and yielded myself up to it.I went to sleep, pondering upon ideas of the most somber philosophy, and I awoke to resume an existence without worth or dignity, in which I was losing not only my power of carrying out my design of reparation towards the phantom which haunted my dreams but all self-esteem, and all conscience.
Who could have helped me reascend this fatal stream? My mother?
She saw nothing but the fashionable exterior of my life, and she congratulated herself that I had "ceased to be a savage." My stepfather? But he had been, voluntarily or not, favorable to my disorderly life.Had he not made me master of my fortune at the most dangerous age? Had he not procured me admission, at the earliest moment, to the clubs to which he belonged, and in every way facilitated my entrance into society? My aunt? Ah, yes, my aunt was grieved by my mode of life; and yet, was she not glad that at any rate I had forgotten the dark resolution of hate that had always frightened her? And, besides, I hardly ever saw her now.
My visits to Compiegne were few, for I was at the age when one always finds time for one's pleasures, but never has any for one's nearest duties.If, indeed, there was a voice that was constantly lifted up against the waste of my life in vulgar pleasures, it was that of the dead, who slept in the day, unavenged; that voice rose, rose, rose unceasingly, from the depths of all my musings, but Ihad accustomed myself to pay it no heed, to make it no answer.Was it my fault that everything, from the most important to the smallest circumstance, conspired to paralyze my will? And so Iexisted, in a sort of torpor which was not dispelled even by the hurly-burly of my mock passions and my mock pleasures.
The falling of a thunderbolt awoke me from this craven slumber of the will.My Aunt Louise was seized with paralysis, towards the end of the sad year 1878, in the month of December.I had come in at night, or rather in the morning, having won a large sum at play.
Several letters and also a telegram awaited me.I tore open the blue envelope, while I hummed the air of a fashionable song, with a cigarette between my lips, untroubled by an idea that I was about to be apprised of an event which would become, after my father's death and my mother's second marriage, the third great date in my life.The telegram was signed by Julie, my former nurse, and it told me that my aunt had been taken ill quite suddenly, also that Imust come at once, although there was a hope of her recovery.
This bad news was the more terrible to me because I had received a letter from my aunt just a week previously, and in it the dear old lady complained, as usual, that I did not come to see her.My answer to her letter was lying half-written upon my writing-table.
I had not finished it; God knows for what futile reason.It needs the advent of that dread visitant, Death, to make us understand that we ought to make good haste and love WELL those whom we do love, if we would not have them pass away from us forever, before we have loved them enough.
Bitter remorse, in that I had not proved to her sufficiently how dear she was to me, increased my anxiety about my aunt's state.It was two o'clock a.m., the first train for Compiegne did not start until six; in the interval she might die.Those were very long hours of waiting, which I killed by turning over in my mind all my shortcomings towards my father's only sister, my sole kinswoman.
The possibility of an irrevocable parting made me regard myself as utterly ungrateful! My mental pain grew keener when I was in the train speeding through the cold dawn of a winter's day, along the road I knew so well.
As I recognized each familiar feature of the way, I became once more the schoolboy whose heart was full of unuttered tenderness, and whose brain was laden with the weight of a terrible mission.
My thoughts outstripped the engine, moving too slowly, to my impatient fancy, which summoned up that beloved face, so frank and so simple, the mouth with its thickish lips and its perfect kindliness, the eyes out of which goodness looked, with their wrinkled, tear-worn lids, the flat bands of grizzled hair.In what state should I find her? Perhaps, if on that night of repentance, wretchedness, and mental disturbance, my nerves had not been strained to the utmost--yes, perhaps I should not have experienced those wild impulses when by the side of my aunt's deathbed, which rendered me capable of disobeying the dying woman.But how can Iregret my disobedience, since it was the one thing that set me on the track of the truth? No, I do not regret anything, I am better pleased to have done what I have done.
