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