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strive to find what there is of evil, they do not understand that others
still believe in the good. Therefore, they are either so nonchalant that
they stop their ears, or the noise of the rest of the world suddenly
startles them from sleep. The father allows his son to go where so many
others go, where Cato himself went; he says that youth is but a stage.
But when he returns, the youth looks upon his sister; and sees what has
taken place in him during an hour passed in the society of brutal
reality! He says to himself: "My sister is not like that creature I have
just left!" And from that day he is disturbed and uneasy.
Sinful curiosity is a vile malady born of all impure contact. It is the
prowling instinct of fantoms who raise the lids of tombs; it is an
inexplicable torture with which God punishes those who have sinned; they
wish to believe that all sin as they have done, and would be disappointed
perhaps to find that it was not so. But they inquire, they search, they
dispute; they hang their heads on one side, as does an architect who
adjusts a pillar, and thus strive to find what they desire to know. Given
proof of evil, they laugh at it; doubtful of evil, they swear that it
exists; the good, they refuse to recognize. "Who knows?" Behold the grand
formula, the first words that Satan spoke when he saw heaven closing
against him. Alas! how many evils are those words responsible for! How
many disasters and deaths, how many strokes of terrible scythes in the
ripening harvest of humanity! How many hearts, how many families where
there is naught but ruin, since that word was first heard! "Who knows!
Who knows!" Loathsome words! Rather than pronounce them, one should do as
the sheep who graze about the slaughter-house and know it not. That is
better than to be a strong spirit and read La Rochefoucauld.
What better illustration could I present than the one I have just given?
My mistress was ready to set out and I had but to say the word. Why did I
delay? What would have been the result if I had started at once on our
trip? Nothing but a moment of apprehension that would have been forgotten
after traveling three days. When with me, she had no thought but of me;
why should I care to solve the mystery that did not threaten my
happiness?
She would have consented and that would have been the end of it. A kiss
on her lips and all would be well; instead of that, see what I did.
One evening when Smith had dined with us, I retired at an early hour and
left them together. As I closed my door, I heard Brigitte order some tea.
In the morning I happened to approach her table, and, sitting beside the
teapot, I saw but one cup. No one had been in that room before me that
morning, so the servant could not have carried away anything that had
been used the night before. I searched everywhere for a second cup but
could find none.
"Did Smith stay late?" I asked of Brigitte.
"He left about midnight."
"Did you retire alone or did you call some one to assist you?"
"I retired alone; every one in the house was asleep."
I continued my search and my hands trembled. In what burlesque comedy is
there a jealous lover, so stupid as to inquire what has become of a cup?
Why seek to discover whether Smith and Madame Pierson had drunk from the
same cup? What a brilliant idea, that!
Nevertheless, I found the cup and I burst into laughter and threw it on
the floor with such violence that it broke into a thousand pieces. I
ground the pieces under my feet.
Brigitte looked at me without saying a word. During the two succeeding
days, she treated me with a coldness that had something of contempt in
it, and I saw that she treated Smith with more deference and kindness
than usual. She called him, Henry, and smiled on him sweetly.
"I feel that the air would do me good," she said after dinner; "shall we
go to the Opera, Octave? I would enjoy walking that far."
"No, I will stay here; go without me." She took Smith's arm and went out.
I remained alone all the evening; I had paper before me and I was trying
to collect my thoughts in order to write, but in vain.
As a lonely lover draws from his bosom a letter from his mistress, and
loses himself in delightful reverie, thus I shut myself up in solitude
and yielded to the sweet allurement of doubt. Before me, were the two
empty seats which Brigitte and Smith had just occupied; I scrutinized
them eagerly as though they could tell me something. I revolved in my
mind all the things I had heard and seen; from time to time, I went to
the door and cast my eyes over our trunks which had been piled against
the wall for a month; I opened them and examined the contents so
carefully packed away by those delicate little hands; I listened to the
sound of passing carriages; the slightest noise made me tremble. I spread
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