CHAPTER II. THE CHOSEN WAY
The first steps in debauchery resemble vertigo, for one feels a sort ofterror mingled with sensuous delight, as if peering downward from somegiddy--height. While shameful, secret dissipation ruins the noblestof men, in the frank and open defiance of conventionality there issomething that compels respect even in the most depraved. He who goesat nightfall, muffled in his cloak, to sully his life in secret, andclandestinely to shake off the hypocrisy of the day, resembles anItalian who strikes his enemy from behind, not daring to provoke him toopen quarrel. There are assassinations in the dark corners of the cityunder shelter of the night. He who goes his way without concealmentsays: "Every one does it and conceals it; I do it and do not concealit." Thus speaks pride, and once that cuirass has been buckled on, itglitters with the refulgent light of day.
It is said that Damocles saw a sword suspended over his head. Thuslibertines seem to have something over their heads which says: "Go on,but remember, I hang not by a thread." Those masked carriages thatare seen during Carnival are the faithful images of their life. Adilapidated open wagon, flaming torches lighting up painted faces; somelaugh, some sing. Among them you see what appear to be women; they arein fact what once were women, with human semblance. They are caressedand insulted; no one knows who they are or what their names. They floatand stagger under the flaming torches in an intoxication that thinks ofnothing, and over which, it is said, a pitying God watches.
But if the first impression be astonishment, the second is horror, andthe third pity. There is evident so much force, or rather such anabuse of force, that often the noblest characters and the strongestconstitutions are ruined. The life appears hardy and dangerous to these;they would make prodigies of themselves; bound to debauchery as Mazeppato his horse, they gallop, making Centaurs of themselves and seeingneither the bloody trail that the shreds of their flesh leave, nor theeyes of the wolves that gleam in hungry pursuit, nor the desert, nor thevultures.
Launched into that life by the circumstances that I have recounted, Imust now describe what I saw there.
Before I had a close view of one of those famous gatherings calledtheatrical masked balls, I had heard the debauchery of the Regencyspoken of, and a reference to the time when a queen of France appeareddisguised as a violet-seller. I found there flower-merchants disguisedas vivandieres. I expected to find libertinism there, but in fact Ifound none at all. One sees only the scum of libertinism, some blows,and drunken women lying in deathlike stupor on broken bottles.
Ere I saw debauchery at table I had heard of the suppers of Heliogabolusand of the philosophy of Greece, which made the pleasures of the sensesa kind of natural religion. I expected to find oblivion or somethinglike joy; I found there the worst thing in the world: ennui trying tolive, and some Englishmen who said: "I do this or that, and so I amusemyself. I have spent so many sovereigns, and have procured so muchpleasure." And thus they wear out their life on that grindstone.
I had known nothing of courtesans when I heard of Aspasia, who sat onthe knees of Alcibiades while discussing philosophy with Socrates.I expected to find something bold and insolent, but gay, free, andvivacious, something with the sparkle of champagne; I found a yawningmouth, a fixed eye, and light fingers.
Before I saw titled courtesans I had read Boccaccio and Bandello; aboveall, I had read Shakespeare. I had dreamed of those beautiful triflers;of those cherubim of hell. A thousand times I had drawn those heads sopoetically foolish, so enterprising in audacity, heads of harebrainedmistresses who wreck a romance with a glance, and who pass through lifeby waves and by pulsations, like the sirens of the tides. I thought ofthe fairies of the modern tales, who are always drunk with love if notwith wine. I found, instead, writers of letters, exact arrangers ofassignations, who practised lying as an art and cloaked their basenessunder hypocrisy, whose only thought was to give themselves for profitand to forget.
Ere first I looked on the gaming-table I had heard of floods of gold,of fortunes made in a quarter of an hour, and of a lord of the court ofHenry IV, who won on one card a hundred thousand louis. I found a narrowroom where workmen who had but one shirt rented a suit for the eveningfor twenty sous, police stationed at the door, and starving wretchesstaking a crust of bread against a pistol-shot.
Unknown to me were those dance-halls, public or other, open to any ofthose thirty thousand women who are permitted to sell themselves inParis; I had heard of the saturnalia of all ages, of every imaginableorgy, from Babylon to Rome, from the temple of Priapus to theParc-aux-Cerfs, and I have always seen written on the sill of that doorthe word, "Pleasure." I found nothing suggestive of pleasure, but in itsplace another word; and it has always seemed ineffaceable, not gravenin that glorious metal that takes the sun's light, but in the palest ofall, the cold colors of which seem tinted by the moonlight silver.
The first time I saw a mob, it was a depressing morning--Ash Wednesday,near Courtille. A cold, fine rain had been falling since the eveningbefore; the streets were covered with pools of water. Carriages withblinds down were strung out hither and thither, crowding between hedgesof hideous men and women standing on the sidewalks. That sinister wallof spectators had tigerish eyes, red with wine, gleaming with hatred.The carriage-wheels splashed mud over them, but they did not move. I wasstanding on the front seat of an open carriage; from time to time a manin rags would step out from the wall, hurl a torrent of abuse at us,then cover us with a cloud of flour. Mud would soon follow; yet we kepton our way toward the Isle of Love and the pretty wood of Romainville,consecrated by so many sweet kisses. One of my friends fell from hisseat into the mud, narrowly escaping death on the paving. The peoplethrew themselves on him to overpower him, and we were obliged to hastento his assistance. One of the trumpeters who preceded us on horsebackwas struck on the shoulder by a paving-stone; the flour had given out. Ihad never heard of anything like that.
I began to understand the time and comprehend the spirit of the age.
La confession d'un enfant du siècle. English Page 12