Paul et Virginie. English
Page 21
I should like to be a very learnedman, if only for the sake of knowing what will come to pass.
_The Old Man._--Who would live, my son, if the future were revealedto him?--when a single anticipated misfortune gives us so much uselessuneasiness--when the foreknowledge of one certain calamity is enoughto embitter every day that precedes it! It is better not to pry toocuriously, even into the things which surround us. Heaven, which hasgiven us the power of reflection to foresee our necessities, gave usalso those very necessities to set limits to its exercise.
_Paul._--You tell me that with money people in Europe acquire dignitiesand honours. I will go, then, to enrich myself in Bengal, and afterwardsproceed to Paris, and marry Virginia. I will embark at once.
_The Old Man._--What! would you leave her mother and yours?
_Paul._--Why, you yourself have advised my going to the Indies.
_The Old Man._--Virginia was then here; but you are now the only meansof support both of her mother and of your own.
_Paul._--Virginia will assist them by means of her rich relation.
_The Old Man._--The rich care little for those, from whom no honour isreflected upon themselves in the world. Many of them have relationsmuch more to be pitied than Madame de la Tour, who, for want of theirassistance, sacrifice their liberty for bread, and pass their livesimmured within the walls of a convent.
_Paul._--Oh, what a country is Europe! Virginia must come back here.What need has she of a rich relation? She was so happy in these huts;she looked so beautiful and so well dressed with a red handkerchief ora few flowers around her head! Return, Virginia! leave your sumptuousmansions and your grandeur, and come back to these rocks,--to the shadeof these woods and of our cocoa trees. Alas! you are perhaps even nowunhappy!"--and he began to shed tears. "My father," continued he, "hidenothing from me; if you cannot tell me whether I shall marry Virginia,tell me at least if she loves me still, surrounded as she is by noblemenwho speak to the king, and who go to see her."
_The Old Man._--Oh, my dear friend! I am sure, for many reasons, thatshe loves you; but above all, because she is virtuous. At these words hethrew himself on my neck in a transport of joy.
_Paul._--But do you think that the women of Europe are false, as theyare represented in the comedies and books which you have lent me?
_The Old Man._--Women are false in those countries where men aretyrants. Violence always engenders a disposition to deceive.
_Paul._--In what way can men tyrannize over women?
_The Old Man._--In giving them in marriage without consulting theirinclinations;--in uniting a young girl to an old man, or a woman ofsensibility to a frigid and indifferent husband.
_Paul._--Why not join together those who are suited to each other,--theyoung to the young, and lovers to those they love?
_The Old Man._--Because few young men in France have property enoughto support them when they are married, and cannot acquire it till thegreater part of their life is passed. While young, they seduce the wivesof others, and when they are old, they cannot secure the affections oftheir own. At first, they themselves are deceivers: and afterwards, theyare deceived in their turn. This is one of the reactions of that eternaljustice, by which the world is governed; an excess on one side is sureto be balanced by one on the other. Thus, the greater part of Europeanspass their lives in this twofold irregularity, which increaseseverywhere in the same proportion that wealth is accumulated in thehands of a few individuals. Society is like a garden, where shrubscannot grow if they are overshadowed by lofty trees; but there is thiswide difference between them,--that the beauty of a garden may resultfrom the admixture of a small number of forest trees, while theprosperity of a state depends on the multitude and equality of itscitizens, and not on a small number of very rich men.
_Paul._--But where is the necessity of being rich in order to marry?
_The Old Man._--In order to pass through life in abundance, withoutbeing obliged to work.
_Paul._--But why not work? I am sure I work hard enough.
_The Old Man._--In Europe, working with your hands is considered adegradation; it is compared to the labour performed by a machine. Theoccupation of cultivating the earth is the most despised of all. Even anartisan is held in more estimation than a peasant.
_Paul._--What! do you mean to say that the art which furnishes food formankind is despised in Europe? I hardly understand you.
_The Old Man._--Oh! it is impossible for a person educated according tonature to form an idea of the depraved state of society. It is easy toform a precise notion of order, but not of disorder. Beauty, virtue,happiness, have all their defined proportions; deformity, vice, andmisery have none.
_Paul._--The rich then are always very happy! They meet with noobstacles to the fulfilment of their wishes, and they can lavishhappiness on those whom they love.
_The Old Man._--Far from it, my son! They are, for the most partsatiated with pleasure, for this very reason,--that it costs them notrouble. Have you never yourself experienced how much the pleasure ofrepose is increased by fatigue; that of eating, by hunger; or that ofdrinking, by thirst? The pleasure also of loving and being loved isonly to be acquired by innumerable privations and sacrifices. Wealth, byanticipating all their necessities, deprives its possessors of all thesepleasures. To this ennui, consequent upon satiety, may also be addedthe pride which springs from their opulence, and which is wounded bythe most trifling privation, when the greatest enjoyments have ceased tocharm. The perfume of a thousand roses gives pleasure but for a moment;but the pain occasioned by a single thorn endures long after theinfliction of the wound. A single evil in the midst of their pleasuresis to the rich like a thorn among flowers; to the poor, on the contrary,one pleasure amidst all their troubles is a flower among a wildernessof thorns; they have a most lively enjoyment of it. The effect of everything is increased by contrast; nature has balanced all things. Whichcondition, after all, do you consider preferable,--to have scarcely anything to hope, and every thing to fear, or to have every thing to hopeand nothing to fear? The former condition is that of the rich,the latter, that of the poor. But either of these extremes is withdifficulty supported by man, whose happiness consists in a middlestation of life, in union with virtue.
_Paul._--What do you understand by virtue?
_The Old Man._--To you, my son, who support your family by your labour,it need hardly be defined. Virtue consists in endeavouring to do all thegood we can to others, with an ultimate intention of pleasing God alone.
_Paul._--Oh! how virtuous, then, is Virginia! Virtue led her to seek forriches, that she might practise benevolence. Virtue induced her to quitthis island, and virtue will bring her back to it.
The idea of her speedy return firing the imagination of this young man,all his anxieties suddenly vanished. Virginia, he was persuaded, had notwritten, because she would soon arrive. It took so little time to comefrom Europe with a fair wind! Then he enumerated the vessels which hadmade this passage of four thousand five hundred leagues in less thanthree months; and perhaps the vessel in which Virginia had embarkedmight not be more than two. Ship-builders were now so ingenious, andsailors were so expert! He then talked to me of the arrangements heintended to make for her reception, of the new house he would build forher, and of the pleasures and surprises which he would contrive for herevery day, when she was his wife. His wife! The idea filled him withecstasy. "At least, my dear father," said he, "you shall then do no morework than you please. As Virginia will be rich, we shall have plenty ofnegroes, and they shall work for you. You shall always live with us, andhave no other care than to amuse yourself and be happy;"--and, his heartthrobbing with joy, he flew to communicate these exquisite anticipationsto his family.
In a short time, however, these enchanting hopes were succeeded by themost cruel apprehensions. It is always the effect of violent passions tothrow the soul into opposite extremes. Paul returned the next day to mydwelling, overwhelmed with melancholy, and said to me,--"I hear nothingfrom Virginia. Had she left Europe she wou
ld have written me word of herdeparture. Ah! the reports which I have heard concerning her are buttoo well founded. Her aunt has married her to some great lord. She,like others, has been undone by the love of riches. In those books whichpaint women so well, virtue is treated but as a subject of romance. IfVirginia had been virtuous, she would never have forsaken her motherand me. I do nothing but think of her, and she has forgotten me. I amwretched, and she is diverting herself. The thought distracts me; Icannot bear myself! Would to Heaven that war were declared in India! Iwould go there and die."
"My son," I answered, "that courage which prompts us to court death isbut the courage of a moment, and is often excited by the vain applauseof men, or by the hopes of posthumous renown. There is anotherdescription of courage, rarer and more necessary, which enables us tosupport, without witness and without applause, the vexations of life;this virtue is patience. Relying for support, not upon the opinionsof others, or the impulse of the passions, but upon the will of