A LOVE CRIME. Paul Bourget
two glasses of
delicate wine and amid naked shoulders does there come to me ceaselessly
at table the image of the grave, and the insoluble question concerning
the meaning of this deadly farce of nature, and the world, and life?
"I muse on the sweets of mutual love, an absurd dream that civilisation
grafts upon the simple need of coupling. Ah! for a simple passion that
might apply my entire sensibility to another being, like wet paper
against a window-pane.
"And all this declamatory philosophy due to the fact that yesterday I
saw Madame de Rugle again at the Théâtre Français, and that the sight
did not move me one whit. What does logic say? That a man should not
force himself to tenderness when his lack of feeling is self-admitted,
but turn on his heel, whistling that polonaise of Chopin's which she
used to play to me sometimes in the evening with so much intention and
sentimentality. And of that passion this is all that is left."
"PARIS, _January_ 1881.
"I am aware that I have become horribly, fiercely egoistic, and the
external manifestations of this egoism are now offensive to me, whereas
formerly I used to surrender myself to it without scruple, at a time,
however, when I was of more worth than I am now by reason of the dream
that I cherished concerning myself.
"Philosophising truthfully about oneself is as great a relief as the
vomiting of bile. I look for the history of my temperament from the days
of my childhood. I see that my imagination has been excessive,
destroying my sensibility by raising a fore-fashioned idea between
myself and reality. I expected to feel in a certain way--and then, I
never did so. This same imagination, darkened by my uncle's harsh
treatment, has turned also to mistrust. I have always dreaded every
creature. The loss of my father and mother prevented the correction of
this early fault. College life and modern literature stained my thought
before I had lived. The same literature separated me from religion at
fifteen. Impiety, to my shame, acted like refinement to seduce me! The
massacres of the Commune showed me the true nature of man, and the
intrigues of the ensuing years the true nature of politics. I longed to
link myself to some great idea--but to which? When quite young I had
measured the wretchedness of an artist's existence. There must be genius
or far better leave it alone. To rank as fiftieth among writers or
musicians--thank you, no. My fortune exempted me from the necessity of a
profession. Enter a Council of State for foreign affairs, or a public
office--and why? There are only too many officials already. Get married?
The thought of chaining down my life never tempted me. I should have
done the same as B---- who, on the day of his wedding, took train to
return no more.
"Then what? Nothing. I have not even grown old of heart; I am abortive.
My sentimental adventures, which have been pursued in spite of
everything, for women are even yet what is least indifferent to me,
have, alas, convinced me that there are no kisses that do not resemble
those already given and received. It is all so short, and superficial,
and vain. How desperate I should be rendered by the thoughts of
myself--of that self which I shall never be able completely to
renounce--did I often indulge in them! What else but the damnation of
the mystics is _non-love_?"
Such were a few of the pages among many others, and the abominable
monograph of a secret disease of soul was continued in hundreds of
similar confidences. Often simply the date was written, together with
two or three facts: Rode, paid visits, went to the club, the theatre in
the evening, or a party, or ball, and then came a single word like a
refrain--_Spleen._ At the beginning of the last of these note-books,
Armand, when he had closed it, could read a list of all the years of his
life since 1860, and after each date he had scrawled--_Torture_, and at
the end, these words:
"I did not ask for life. If I have committed faults, frightful ones, too,
I have also known sufferings such as, set over against the others, might
say to the inconceivable Power that has created and that sustains me, if
such a Power possess a heart: 'Have pity upon me!'"
The young man thrust away with his hand the heap of papers wherein he
encountered so faithful an image of his present moral aridity. Slowly he
began to walk about the room. Everywhere in it he recognised the same
tokens of his inward nihilism. The low bookcase contained but those few
books which he still liked: novels of withering analysis--"Dangerous
Liaisons," "Adolphus," "Affinities"--moralists of keen and self-centred
misanthropy, and memoirs. The photographs scattered over the walls
reminded him of his travels--those useless travels during which he had
failed to beguile his weariness. On the chimney-piece, between the
likenesses of two dead friends, he kept an enigmatic portrait,
representing two women, with the head of the one resting upon the
shoulder of the other. It was the present, life-like remembrance of a
terrible story--the story of the bitterest faithlessness he had ever
endured. He had been cynical or artificial enough to laugh over it
formerly with the two heroines, but he had laughed with death in his
heart.
At the sight of all these objects witnessing to the manner of his life,
he was so completely sensible of his emotional wretchedness that he
wrung his hands, saying quite aloud: "What a life! Good God! what a
life!" It was owing to experiences such as these that his lips and eyes
preserved that expression of silent melancholy to which he had perhaps
owed Helen's love. It is their pity that leads to the capture of the
noblest women. But these crises did not last long with Armand. In his
case muscles were stronger than nerves. He took up his journals, and