I plunged into dissipation, into corroding vice, I desired and possessed everything, for fasting had made me light-headed like the tempted Saint Anthony.
Slumber, happily, would put an end at last to these devastating trances; and on the morrow science would beckon me, smiling, and I was faithful to her.
I imagine that women reputed virtuous, must often fall a prey to these insane tempests of desire and passion, which rise in us in spite of ourselves.
Such dreams have a charm of their own; they are something akin to evening gossip round the winter fire, when one sets out for some voyage in China.
But what becomes of virtue during these delicious excursions, when fancy overleaps all difficulties?
"During the first ten months of seclusion I led the life of poverty and solitude that I have described to you; I used to steal out unobserved every morning to buy my own provisions for the day; I tidied my room; I was at once master and servant, and played the Diogenes with incredible spirit.
But afterwards, while my hostess and her daughter watched my ways and behavior, scrutinized my appearance and divined my poverty, there could not but be some bonds between us; perhaps because they were themselves so very poor.
Pauline, the charming child, whose latent and unconscious grace had, in a manner, brought me there, did me many services that I could not well refuse.
All women fallen on evil days are sisters; they speak a common language; they have the same generosity—the generosity that possesses nothing, and so is lavish of its affection, of its time, and of its very self.
"Imperceptibly Pauline took me under her protection, and would do things for me.
No kind of objection was made by her mother, whom I even surprised mending my linen; she blushed for the charitable occupation.
In spite of myself, they took charge of me, and I accepted their services.
"In order to understand the peculiar condition of my mind, my preoccupation with work must be remembered, the tyranny of ideas, and the instinctive repugnance that a man who leads an intellectual life must ever feel for the material details of existence.
Could I well repulse the delicate attentions of Pauline, who would noiselessly bring me my frugal repast, when she noticed that I had taken nothing for seven or eight hours?
She had the tact of a woman and the inventiveness of a child; she would smile as she made sign to me that I must not see her.
Ariel glided under my roof in the form of a sylph who foresaw every want of mine.
"One evening Pauline told me her story with touching simplicity.
Her father had been a major in the horse grenadiers of the Imperial Guard.
He had been taken prisoner by the Cossacks, at the passage of Beresina; and when Napoleon later on proposed an exchange, the Russian authorities made search for him in Siberia in vain; he had escaped with a view of reaching India, and since then Mme. Gaudin, my landlady, could hear no news of her husband.
Then came the disasters of 1814 and 1815; and, left alone and without resource, she had decided to let furnished lodgings in order to keep herself and her daughter.
"She always hoped to see her husband again.
Her greatest trouble was about her daughter's education; the Princess Borghese was her Pauline's godmother; and Pauline must not be unworthy of the fair future promised by her imperial protectress.
When Mme. Gaudin confided to me this heavy trouble that preyed upon her, she said, with sharp pain in her voice,
'I would give up the property and the scrap of paper that makes Gaudin a baron of the empire, and all our rights to the endowment of Wistchnau, if only Pauline could be brought up at Saint-Denis?' Her words struck me; now I could show my gratitude for the kindnesses expended on me by the two women; all at once the idea of offering to finish Pauline's education occurred to me; and the offer was made and accepted in the most perfect simplicity.
In this way I came to have some hours of recreation.
Pauline had natural aptitude; she learned so quickly, that she soon surpassed me at the piano.
As she became accustomed to think aloud in my presence, she unfolded all the sweet refinements of a heart that was opening itself out to life, as some flower-cup opens slowly to the sun. She listened to me, pleased and thoughtful, letting her dark velvet eyes rest upon me with a half smile in them; she repeated her lessons in soft and gentle tones, and showed childish glee when I was satisfied with her.
Her mother grew more and more anxious every day to shield the young girl from every danger (for all the beauty promised in early life was developing in the crescent moon), and was glad to see her spend whole days indoors in study.
My piano was the only one she could use, and while I was out she practised on it.
When I came home, Pauline would be in my room, in her shabby dress, but her slightest movement revealed her slender figure in its attractive grace, in spite of the coarse materials that she wore.
As with the heroine of the fable of 'Peau-d'Ane,' a dainty foot peeped out of the clumsy shoes.
But all her wealth of girlish beauty was as lost upon me.
I had laid commands upon myself to see a sister only in Pauline. I dreaded lest I should betray her mother's faith in me. I admired the lovely girl as if she had been a picture, or as the portrait of a dead mistress; she was at once my child and my statue.
For me, another Pygmalion, the maiden with the hues of life and the living voice was to become a form of inanimate marble. I was very strict with her, but the more I made her feel my pedagogue's severity, the more gentle and submissive she grew.
"If a generous feeling strengthened me in my reserve and self-restraint, prudent considerations were not lacking beside.
Integrity of purpose cannot, I think, fail to accompany integrity in money matters.
To my mind, to become insolvent or to betray a woman is the same sort of thing.
If you love a young girl, or allow yourself to be beloved by her, a contract is implied, and its conditions should be thoroughly understood.
We are free to break with the woman who sells herself, but not with the young girl who has given herself to us and does not know the extent of her sacrifice.
I must have married Pauline, and that would have been madness.
Would it not have given over that sweet girlish heart to terrible misfortunes?
My poverty made its selfish voice heard, and set an iron barrier between that gentle nature and mine.
Besides, I am ashamed to say, that I cannot imagine love in the midst of poverty.
Perhaps this is a vitiation due to that malady of mankind called civilization; but a woman in squalid poverty would exert no fascination over me, were she attractive as Homer's Galatea, the fair Helen.
"Ah, vive l'amour! But let it be in silk and cashmere, surrounded with the luxury which so marvelously embellishes it; for is it not perhaps itself a luxury?
I enjoy making havoc with an elaborate erection of scented hair; I like to crush flowers, to disarrange and crease a smart toilette at will.
A bizarre attraction lies for me in burning eyes that blaze through a lace veil, like flame through cannon smoke.
My way of love would be to mount by a silken ladder, in the silence of a winter night.
And what bliss to reach, all powdered with snow, a perfumed room, with hangings of painted silk, to find a woman there, who likewise shakes away the snow from her; for what other name can be found for the white muslin wrappings that vaguely define her, like some angel form issuing from a cloud!
And then I wish for furtive joys, for the security of audacity.